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NIH Update- April 2025:
"The 2024 Public Access Policy, originally slated to go into effect on December 31, 2025, will now be effective as of July 1, 2025." See the NIH Director's announcement "Accelerating Access to Research Results: New Implementation Date for the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy" or the NIH 2024 Public Access Policy notice.
Read more information about the NIH Public Access Policy in our guide!
For further assistance in navigating public access policy changes, continue reading this guide and/or contact the Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development:
NIH Update- January 2025:
A hiring freeze and pause on communications and travel is affecting the NIH as a result of the new federal administration. UTK researchers may refer to the Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development for questions regarding funding and projects during this time.
NASA Update- January 2025:
NASA released the final version of its Public Access Plan for Increasing Access to the Results of Scientific Research in January 2025. This plan specifies no embargoes for peer-reviewed publications and that data should also be made available in a public archive at the time of publication. To learn more, visit the NASA webpage:
NIH Update- July 2024:
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has proposed an update to their existing Public Access Policy that would remove the embargo period. This policy could potentially take effect in October 2025. To learn more about the NIH Public Access Policy, visit the link below:
A public access policy is a mandate from an organization that requires federally-funded research to be made publicly available. For example, the federal agency National Institutes of Health (NIH) requires authors who received funding from them to deposit their resulting manuscript into their PubMed Central repository. Because the public pays taxes, federally-funded research should be made available for them to access.
It is important to understand that public access is different from open access. Public access is mandated, while open access is up to the authors. Authors may have to pay an article processing charge (APC) to make their articles open access, but they do not have to do so to make their articles public access; instead, they need to deposit their work in the designated repository that their federal funding agency requires. There may also be copyright and licensing differences between public access articles and open access articles.
Released by the U.S. government in August 2022, the Nelson Memo recommended funding policy changes in order to provide free and immediate public access to taxpayer funded research. It required policy plans to be published by government funding agencies by December 31st, 2024, and was set to go into full effect by December 31st, 2025.
"This memorandum provides policy guidance to federal agencies with research and development expenditures on updating their public access policies. In accordance with this memorandum, OSTP recommends that federal agencies, to the extent consistent with applicable law:
1. Update their public access policies as soon as possible, and no later than December 31st, 2025, to make publications and their supporting data resulting from federally funded research publicly accessible without an embargo on their free and public release;
2. Establish transparent procedures that ensure scientific and research integrity is maintained in public access policies; and,
3. Coordinate with OSTP to ensure equitable delivery of federally funded research results and data."
Note: New administration in U.S. federal governments may affect the implications and/or applications of this memo.
Learn more about the definition of public access and how the Nelson memo works in the following videos:
The White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy released the Expanding Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research policy memorandum in February 2013. It directed federal agencies to develop plans to make the publications resulting from federally funded research freely available to the public within one year of publication. It also required researchers to better account for and manage the digital data resulting from federally funded scientific research.
The memo is directed to departments and agencies with over $100 million in annual extramural R&D budgets. Federal funding agencies started rolling out their implementation plans in 2014.
