Effective July 1, 2025 – New NIH Public Access Policy

It was announced on April 30, 2025, that the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy, originally planned to come into effect at the end of 2025 will now be effective as of July 1, 2025.

A key difference between the 2008 and the new 2024 NIH Public Access Policy has to do with how quickly a full-text PMC version of the research article is required to be made publicly available.

In the 2008 version of the policy, the PMC copy had up to 12 months after official publication to become publicly available. The 2024 version of the policy removes the 12-month publisher embargo option and requires the article’s PMC version to become available immediately upon official publication. The new policy will apply to all NIH-funded research articles submitted for journal publication starting on July 1st.

From: https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/accelerating-access-research-results-new-implementation-date-2024-nih-public-access-policy

“While the 2008 Policy allowed for an up to 12-month delay before such articles were required to be made publicly available, in 2024, NIH revised the Public Access Policy to remove the embargo period so that researchers, students, and members of the public have rapid access to these findings.”

From: NOT-OD-25-101- Revision: Notice of Updated Effective Date for the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy:

“NIH’s default position is maximum transparency regarding research and research findings. This Notice updates the Effective Date of the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy, NOT-OD-25-047to July 1, 2025 at which time it will replace the 2008 Public Access Policy. All other aspects of the Policy remain the same.“

From: NOT-OD-25-047 – 2024 NIH Public Access Policy:

Regarding submission to PubMed Central, compliance with the Policy may be achieved through either:

  • Submission of the electronic version of the Author Accepted Manuscript to PubMed Central upon its acceptance for publication, for public availability without embargo upon the Official Date of Publication, or
  • Submission of the Final Published Article to PubMed Central from journals or publishers with formal agreements with NLM, upon the Official Date of Publication, for public availability without embargo.

Learn more about how to comply with the NIH Pubic Access Policy or Ask Us your questions.

Scientific Writing Resources

As generative AI tools have become increasingly available to academic researchers, so too have the reports of GPT-fabricated scientific papers creeping into the public scholarly record, for example, this 2024 report from the Harvard Kennedy School:

GPT-fabricated scientific papers on Google Scholar: Key features, spread, and implications for preempting evidence manipulation | HKS Misinformation Review

Developing strong scientific writing skills has always been an important component of graduate training in the basic sciences, however, not all scientific authors have the same degree of exposure to writing classes and authorship opportunities. As the burden of recognizing fake papers is falling more and more on the readers of scientific works, there couldn’t be a better way to protect yourself against fraudulent articles than by becoming an expert at scientific writing yourself.

Here’s some resources to explore if you wish to develop your scientific writing skills:

1) E-books from the MSK Library’s collection and full-text book chapters available online

2)     Duke Graduate School Scientific Writing Resource
https://sites.duke.edu/scientificwriting/
“The Scientific Writing Resource is online course material that teaches how to write effectively. The material is not about correctness (grammar, punctuation, etc.), but about communicating what you intend to the reader. It can be used either in a science class or by individuals. It is intended for science students at the graduate level.”

“This guide to scientific writing was originally created in 2010-2011 by Nathan Sheffield for the Duke University Graduate School and funded by a Duke University Graduate School Teaching mini-grant. This current site is maintained by the Duke Graduate School. If you have questions about this site, please contact gradschool@duke.edu.”

The MSK Library also provides access to writing support tools, including:

1)     Citation Management tools – https://libguides.mskcc.org/citationmanagement  

Find out about a variety of citation management software tools that can save you time when you are formatting your manuscript’s references and bibliography.


2)     Trinka AI – https://libguides.mskcc.org/trinka

“Trinka is an AI-powered writing assistant designed for academic and technical writing. Trinka corrects advanced grammar errors and contextual spelling mistakes by providing writing suggestions in real-time. It helps academicians write in a formal, concise, and engaging manner. In addition to correcting grammatical errors, Trinka allows you to paraphrase the text and improve consistency, enabling you to enhance the quality of your writing based on your requirements.”

3)     iThenticate – https://libguides.mskcc.org/ithenticate

“iThenticate is a tool for researchers and writers to check their original works for potential plagiarism. This resource will check against 93% of Top Cited Journal content and 70+ billion current and archived web pages.” 

Questions? Ask Us at the MSK Library!