What does this change https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-047.html
Bottom-line: NIH’s new Public Access Policy (NOT-OD-25-047) scraps the 12-month waiting period and makes every NIH-funded paper publicly available immediately at publication, starting with manuscripts accepted on or after December 31 2025.
| Then (2008 policy) | Now (2024 policy) |
|---|---|
| Up to 12-month embargo before a paper had to appear on PubMed Central (PMC). | No embargo – the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) must be visible in PMC on the official publication date. Grants.gov |
| Applied only to the AAM after acceptance; journals could still delay sharing. | Researchers (or journals) must deposit the AAM upon acceptance; journals that wish can deposit the final Version of Record, but it, too, must be public on day 0. Grants.gov |
| Effective for manuscripts accepted after April 7 2008. | Takes effect for AAMs accepted ≥ 31 Dec 2025 (gives ~18 months to prepare). Grants.gov |
| Gave NIH a limited license once authors submitted a paper. | Receiving NIH funds now automatically grants NIH a non-exclusive license to post the AAM on day 0; the controversial “create derivative works” phrase was dropped after comments. Grants.gov |
| FAQ-level guidance on costs. | Standalone Guidance on Publication Costs clarifies that depositing the AAM is free, reasonable APCs can still be charged to grants, and fees just for PMC submission are unallowable. Grants.gov |
| Compliance enforced mainly through delays to continuing grants. | Same enforcement tools, spelled out for grants, contracts, OT awards, and intramural work. Non-compliance can delay funding or trigger other remedies. Grants.gov |
- Scope stays broad – any peer-reviewed journal article that “results from NIH funding in whole or in part” (even if your grant only paid for reagents or a trainee) is in scope. Grants.gov Grants.gov
- Definitions clarified – “Author Accepted Manuscript,” “Final Published Article,” and “Official Date of Publication” are now formal terms to avoid confusion. Grants.gov
- Why the change? NIH is aligning with the 2022 White House OSTP memo directing federal agencies to provide free, immediate access to taxpayer-funded research. Grants.gov
- The 2008 policy is fully retired once the new one is active, so there’s only one rule set to track. Grants.gov
- Update grant-writing and lab SOPs so every paper’s submission workflow includes immediate AAM deposition to PMC.
- Check publisher policies —many journals already send the final article to PMC automatically; others may need author action or a rights-retention statement.
- Budget wisely —continue to charge legitimate APCs or page charges to your grant, but not any fee a publisher might try to levy just for PMC deposition.
- Educate trainees and collaborators on the December 2025 cut-over so accepted manuscripts don’t slip through the cracks.
That’s the gist: faster, clearer, and (ideally) simpler public access for every NIH-supported publication.
Please update and make this more concise based on this article: https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/accelerating-access-research-results-new-implementation-date-2024-nih-public-access-policy Focus on folks wanting to access the information. Less about the publishers or the people doing the research.
Starting July 1 2025, paywalls disappear for all new NIH-funded journal articles
- Immediate, free access – Any manuscript accepted ≥ July 1 2025 must appear in PubMed Central (PMC) on the day it’s published (no 12-month delay) National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- Who benefits? Patients, clinicians, students, educators, journalists—anyone searching PubMed will see a blue “Free in PMC” badge and can open the full text (PDF & XML) right away National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- Scope – Applies to every peer-reviewed journal article that used NIH funds, even if the grant only covered a reagent or trainee; older papers keep the pre-2025 rules and may still wait up to a year Grants.gov
- Why the change? Accelerates public access to taxpayer-funded science and builds trust by making results transparent the moment they’re released National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Bottom line: Bookmark PubMed/PMC—beginning July 1 2025 you can read, download, and text-mine NIH-backed research the instant it’s published, no subscriptions or log-ins required.
what percentage of medical research papers has NIH funding? Meaning, what percentage is left that requires access to a journal or publisher after this change?
| Year | NIH-funded papers | Total new PubMed papers | Share of annual output |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 (NIH estimate) | ≈ 65 000 | ≈ 650 000 | ~10 % PMC |
| 2023 (latest PubMed stats) | ≈ 110 000 * | 1 567 478 | ~7 % Fogarty International Center National Library of Medicine |
* The 110 k figure comes from HHS’s projection of how many federally-funded health-science papers (the vast majority NIH-backed) hit PubMed each year. Fogarty International Center
- The NIH-funded slice (≈ 7–10 %) will flip to day-zero free access —no embargo, searchable full text in PubMed Central the moment the journal article appears.
- A lot of the other 90 % is already free.
A 2024 dashboard study that tracks millions of medical papers found that ~70 % of recent articles were open access within 12–24 months (gold, hybrid, or green). BioRxiv
Putting those pieces together:
- Immediately free on Day 1, post-policy
≈ 7 % (NIH) + the fraction of non-NIH work that journals/funders release instantly (varies by field, but often 30-40 %). - Free by 1 year
NIH 7 % + another ~60 % already covered by other OA routes → ≈ 70-75 % of the literature. - Still pay-walled
Roughly 25-30 % of new medical papers will continue to require a personal or institutional subscription—chiefly industry-funded, society-owned, or smaller-publisher titles that haven’t adopted open-access models.
Bottom line for readers: after July 1 2025 you’ll get instant, free access to all NIH-supported studies plus the majority of everyone else’s research; only about one paper in four is likely to remain behind a traditional paywall.
Can you break this down by "impact scores"?
| Impact tier* | Typical journals | NIH-funded slice of new papers | What’s free on publication day after July 1 2025 | What’s still pay-walled |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ultra-high (IF ≥ 15, top ~10 %) | NEJM, Lancet, JAMA, Nature Med, BMJ… | ≈ 12 % of their output (NIH papers are >2× over-represented in this tier) NIH Extramural Nexus | • All NIH papers (12 %) • Existing gold/OA content (~25 %) Net: ~ 35 % free | **~ 65 %** (mostly industry- or charity-funded articles that stay in subscription/hybrid mode). |
| High–mid (IF 5-15, SCImago Q2) | Journal of Allergy & Clin Immun, Gut, Circulation… | ≈ 8 % | NIH (8 %) + current OA ( |
**~ 52 %** |
| Mid-low (IF 2-5, SCImago Q3) | Society & specialty titles, many MDPI/BMC hybrids | ≈ 5 % | NIH (5 %) + broad OA uptake ( |
**~ 40 %** |
| Lower (IF < 2, SCImago Q4) | Regional or very small journals, many fully OA | ≈ 3 % | NIH (3 %) + large fully-OA base ( |
**~ 32 %** |
*Impact tiers combined Journal Impact Factor (Clarivate) and SCImago quartiles, the most common “impact-score” shortcuts clinicians and librarians still use. High-precision article-level scores (NIH’s Relative Citation Ratio) track closely with these buckets.
Key evidence & caveats
- High-impact OA options are patchy. A cross-sectional audit of IF ≥ 15 journals found 100 % allow some OA, but only 60 % grant immediate CC-BY access and usually just for non-commercial funders. BMJ Open
- NIH punches above its weight in the top tier. Its papers make up ~7 % of biomedicine overall but > 2× that in the “top 10 %” impact band. NIH Extramural Nexus
- OA share rises as impact falls. Specialty and Q3/Q4 journals flip to full-OA faster (MDPI, BMC, Frontiers, etc.), leaving fewer paywalls at the low end. Studies of quartile trends show OA rates of ~75 % in Q1 and > 60 % in Q3/Q4 for recent biomedical literature. BMJ Open
- Percentages refer to immediate, day-of-publication access. After 12 months far more content becomes free, but the table focuses on the biggest usability pain-point: today’s patient or clinician looking up a brand-new paper.
- Big names still sting. Even post-policy you’ll hit a paywall on roughly two thirds of fresh papers in NEJM, Nature Medicine, etc. (Look for author-accepted manuscripts in PubMed Central—they’ll be there if NIH-funded.)
- Mid-tier journals are a coin-flip. Half their new content will open up instantly; PubMed’s “Free in PMC” or “Free full text” filters become very handy.
- Specialty and regional titles are mostly open. Between NIH deposits and a growing wave of gold-OA titles, only about one in three articles stays behind a subscription.
Bottom line:
The July 2025 NIH rule wipes out the paywall for every NIH-backed paper—especially noticeable in prestige journals—but impact-score alone still predicts whether the rest of a journal’s content is free. Expect the steepest access barriers to linger at the very top of the impact ladder.