Public Access Policy
A provision of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) open access policy mandates that the public have free access to the results of research by NIH grantees. The law requires that researchers submit their accepted, peer reviewed, manuscripts into PubMed Central, NIH’s public database of funded research papers. The full text of an article is then posted onto the database no later than 12 months after publication. http://publicaccess.nih.gov/
Update July 10, 2024:The FY25 appropriations bill for Labor, Health and Human Services (L-HHS) includes a provision that would invalidate the mandate outlined in the Nelson Public Access Memo from being implemented. To date, all federal agencies funding scientific research continue to implement a Public Access plan.
Update August 25, 2022: The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) interim Director Dr. Alondra Nelson delivered guidance for agencies to update their public access policies as soon as possible to make publications and research funded by taxpayers publicly accessible, without an embargo or cost. All agencies will fully implement updated policies, including ending the optional 12-month embargo, no later than December 31, 2025. The new public access guidance was developed with the input of multiple federal agencies (including NIH and NSF) over the course of this year, to enable progress on a number of Biden-Harris Administration priorities. BPS will actively monitor the development of this guidance as it applies to each funding agency.
Reproducability of Research
The Biophysical Society, publisher of Biophysical Journal (BJ), agrees fully with the intent of the National Institutes of Health’s Principles and Guidelines for Reporting Preclinical Research to encourage reproducible, robust, and transparent research. The two basic principles underlying these Guidelines are the following: First, research results should be reported with sufficient clarity and detail to ensure that the study can be replicated in any laboratory. Second, data and material produced during the research leading to a published study should be readily disseminated and openly accessible, whenever feasible.
Guidelines for the Reproducibility of Basic Biophysics Research