Upcoming Policy Changes Impacting Federally-Funded Research – Important Date Change!

What changes are coming to federal agencies' public access policies?

A 2022 memo from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) outlined new requirements for access to federally-funded research publications. The original policy stated that federal agencies with any level of research and development expenditures would be required to establish new, compliant public access policies by December 31, 2024, to go into effect no later than December 31, 2025. In the interest of accelerating public access to tax payer funded research, the effective date for the new NIH Public Access Policy has now been moved to July 1, 2025.

Specific requirements for these new policies are:

• Publications with federally-funded research results and their supporting data must be made publicly accessible immediately upon publication.
• There can no longer be an embargo period on making these publications freely available.
• The policy applies to all federal agencies, regardless of their total research and development expenditures (previously was limited to agencies with >$100,000,000 in annual expenditures).

How is the NIH Public Access Policy changing?

• The NIH Public Access Policy was updated on December 27, 2024. The 2024 NIH Public Access Policy was orginally scheduled to go into effect on December 31, 2025. In April 2025, the NIH announced that the new policy will now go into effect on July 1, 2025, and will apply to NIH-funded manuscripts accepted on or after this date.
• The primary changes in this policy, compared to the 2008 NIH Public Access Policy are:
  • PubMed Central deposit procedures will be modified, removing the option currently allowing a 12-month embargo on full text access to the publication.
  • The official publication date (i.e., the date NIH uses to determine public access compliance status) will be clarified as "the date on which the publisher first makes an article available in final, edited form, whether in print or electronic (i.e., online) format."
• Otherwise, methods for making an article available through PubMed Central will remain the same.
• The current NIH Data Management & Sharing Policy is still in effect.

How are other agencies' policies changing?

Please see the links below for more information about selected agencies' responses to the OSTP memo. For other funding agencies, please refer to the agency website or search the Federal Register using terms such as "public access" for more information about their specific policy.

• Department of Energy:
  https://www.energy.gov/doe-public-access-plan
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA):
  https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/nasa-ocs-public-access-plan-may-2023.pdf
• U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF):
  https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2023/nsf23104/nsf23104.pdf
• U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA):
  https://www.nal.usda.gov/services/public-access

How is SPI-Hub™ aiding authors with these policy changes?

• We will continue to update this page with new information as the deadline for implementation draws nearer.
• We are working to add information to SPI-Hub™ journal records that will aid authors in assessing whether a particular journal meets current and future public access policy requirements.

Where can I go for more information and help?

• Please see the 2022 OSTP memo for additional information:
  https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/08-2022-OSTP-Public-Access-Memo.pdf
• Your organization may provide assistance with paying open access charges through publisher transformative agreements. Please check with your organization for more detail.