NIH public access policy made “permanent”

The consolidated appropriations bill passed by Congress and signed into law on Wednesday has a provision that makes the NIH public access policy permanent:

[Via THOMAS] Sec. 217. The Director of the National Institutes of Health (`NIH’) shall require in the current fiscal year and thereafter that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

I’ve highlighted the key phrase in red, which is the only difference between this year’s language and that of previous years. The effect of this language is that it will no longer be necessary for language enabling the public access policy to appear in the appropriations bill every year – it will just continue until Congress specifically ends it. Hence the idea that it is now “permanent”. 

Congrats and thanks to Heather Joseph at SPARC, Sharon Terry at the Genetics Alliance and the others who worked to make this happen.  

Of course, H.R. 801 still lurks, but I think it’s time to turn our attention to other things. In particular, having the policy apply to work funded by other government agencies (NSF in particular), and in working to make the 12 month delay shorter and shorter.