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Complying with the Policy
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Complying with the Policy

Outline of steps required to submit an article to the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS).

NIH information page on submission methods, including links to video tutorials on (1) how to submit your final peer-reviewed manuscript to the NIHMS; (2) how to approve submission of your final peer-reviewed manuscript to the NIHMS.

The NIH provides a number of slide show tutorials on how to use the NIHMS.

See the NIH's Citation Methods page to learn more about citing papers in accordance with the NIH Public Access Policy.

Once you have retained sufficient rights to submit your article to PubMed Central, you must make sure the submission process is completed.

Submitting Your Article to PubMed Central

The steps required to submit your article to PubMed Central (PMC) are determined by the nature of your agreement with the publisher. Learn what you need to do to submit to PMC by viewing an outline of steps in the submission process.

Obtaining Your PMCID

Once an article is converted to standard PMC format and reviewed and approved by the author, the NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) system automatically releases the article to PMC for public posting after the delay period specified during submission. It is at this point that an article is assigned its PMC reference number or PMCID.

Before You Make Your Next Submission to NIH

The PMCID that you receive upon completing your submission to PMC is a necessary citation in your submissions to NIH. The reference number is needed in NIH applications, proposals, and progress reports, for any article authored by you or that arose from your NIH award. This requirement, which took effect on May 25, 2008, applies not only to articles that you authored or co-authored, but also to articles you cite that are written by someone else whose research was funded by your NIH award.

The PMCID must be listed at the end of the already-required full journal citation for the article. If a PMCID is not yet available, the NIH Manuscript Submission system reference number (NIHMS ID) must be included instead.