Notice Number: NOT-OD-16-079
Key Dates
Release Date: March 24, 2016
NOT-OD-15-091
NOT-OD-08-119
NOT-OD-15-090
Issued by
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Purpose
This Notice clarifies public access reporting requirements for publications arising from shared resources.
Background
The NIH public access policy requires scientists to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to PubMed Central immediately upon acceptance for publication. If an awardee claims a publication arises from their NIH award, they are responsible for its compliance with the public access policy.
NIH awardees can enhance the value of their research by sharing resources, including materials, equipment and data, that they develop through their award. NIH encourages awardees to share resources. Sharing can lead to new knowledge and scientific publications.
This Notice helps awardees balance the burden and benefits of tracking the impacts of their shared resources. NIH continues to encourage awardees to share their resources in a timely manner.
Guidance for Reporting Publications Supported by Shared Resources in RPPRs and Renewal Applications
Applicability
This guidance applies to awardees whose only contribution to a publication are resources shared from their NIH award.
Reporting Papers supported by Shared Resources
If an NIH award’s only contribution to a publication is a shared resource, awardees should not list the publication in section C.1 of an RPPR or in the progress report publication list of a Renewal application.
Awardees are not required to track or report publications arising from the resources they share. Instead:
- Awardees submitting an RPPR can opt to list and/or summarize these publications in section B.2. Section B.2 requests a description of accomplishments and other achievements. Publications listed and/or summarized in this section will not count against the section’s two-page limit.
- Awardees submitting a Renewal application can opt to list and/or summarize these publications in the appropriate sharing plan (Data Sharing Plan, Genomic Data Sharing Plan, Model Organism Sharing Plan Resource Sharing Plan, etc.).
Awardees should only use a list or summary to highlight how shared resources lead to noteworthy impact(s). Neither a list nor summary is required. If awardees provide a list, it does not have to be complete.
Discretion
Awardees can share resources with varying degrees of interaction with people using the resource; from consultation resulting in authorship for the awardee, to scientists using the resource without the awardee’s knowledge.
- If award personnel are authors on a publication that arose from award, then the publication must be reported in Section C.1 of an RPPR or the Progress Report Publication section of a Renewal application.
- If award personnel offer advice that does not result in authorship, awardees can decide if their contribution justifies citing the publication in Section C.1 of an RPPR or the Progress Report Publication section. If they choose to cite the paper in Section C.1 of an RPPR or the Progress Report Publication, they are claiming full credit and responsibility for the publication.
Examples
- Resource sharing resulting in a paper: Anne publishes a paper using data and documentation shared from Barbara’s NIH award. Barbara’s lab manager offers some helpful advice to Anne’s data analyst, but no award personnel are authors on the paper. Barbara chooses to neither count nor summarize the findings of Anne’s publication in Barbara’s RPPR.
- Summary of publications arising from resource sharing: “We made our dataset publicly available this reporting period and it has already been cited in at least 6 publications. Some of the highlights of these publications include an analysis of and the discovery that .”
General Reminders
- Awardees are responsible for public access compliance of all publications listed in section C.1 of an RPPR or a progress report publication list of a Renewal.
- Failure to comply with reporting requirements may cause an award to become noncompliant. Noncompliant awards may have funding withheld.
Additional Background Information
- NIH and Other PHS Agency Research Performance Progress (RPPR) Instruction Guide
- SF424 (R&R) Application and Electronic Submission Information
- NIH Grants Policy Statement 8.2.3 Sharing Research Resources
- NIH maintains the NIH Public Access Policy Website, http://publicaccess.nih.gov/, which includes sections on Submission Methods, Citation Methods, and Frequently Asked Questions.
Inquiries
Send questions concerning this notice or other aspects of the NIH Public Access Policy to:
Office of Extramural Research
Email: PublicAccess@nih.gov
Website: http://publicaccess.nih.gov
and Human Services (HHS)
