Public Access Policy Requirements Related to Costs

All costs must comport with 2 CFR 200 subpart E or its successor regulation, as implemented in NIH GPS 7.2 and GPS 7.9. These principles also apply as analogous requirements in the terms of Other Transaction agreements. For applicable contracts, all publication costs must comport with 2 CFR 200 subpart E, or its successor regulation, and the terms and conditions of the contract.

The NIH Public Access Policy clarifies that reasonable costs that are allowable may be requested in the budget for the project as direct or indirect costs, as specified in the NIH GPS and as incorporated into the terms of Other Transaction agreements and applicable contracts. Importantly, the NIH Public Access Policy also states that submission of Author Accepted Manuscripts to PubMed Central remains free for authors. Journal or publisher fees that arise during the course of the publication process for the sole purpose of submitting the Author Accepted Manuscript to PubMed Central are not allowable costs. Compliance with the Policy does not require the payment of an open access fee to a journal.

Other Unallowable Costs

In addition to not allowing the payment of fees to submit Author Accepted Manuscripts to PubMed Central, examples of other unallowable costs are listed below in the context of the corresponding rules that can be found in the NIH GPS. This list may be updated as needed.

• Costs for services (e.g., peer review) for which there is no resulting, publicly available product are unallowable because costs must be chargeable or assignable in accordance with the relative benefits received (GPS 7.2).
• Costs for which the institution already pays a fee that would cover all publication costs (e.g., an agreement the institution has with a publisher whereby all authors from that institution may publish for free in exchange for subscription services) are unallowable because costs may not be double charged or inconsistently charged as both direct and indirect costs (GPS 7.4). Note that institutions have discretion in apportioning publication costs among agreements and NIH funds, as long as when NIH funds are used, such costs are otherwise allowable and consistently charged, regardless of the source of funds, per institutional policy.
• Costs for publishing services that are charged differentially because an Author Accepted Manuscript is subject to the NIH Public Access Policy or the work is the result of NIH funding are unallowable because charges must be levied impartially on all items published by the journal, whether or not under a federal award (GPS 7.9.1).
• Costs for services incurred after closeout of the award, even for an Author Accepted Manuscript subject to the NIH Public Access Policy, are unallowable because the costs of publications must be incurred before closeout (GPS 7.9.1). Note that this means that costs for publication may be charged after the period of performance and prior to closeout (i.e., during the 120-day liquidation period). However, these costs must only be for the originally approved activities and must not be associated with any new work performed outside of the period of performance.

Points to Consider for Authors and Institutions in Assessing Reasonable Costs

As stated in Section 7.2 of the NIH GPS, a cost may be considered reasonable if the nature of the goods or services acquired or applied and the associated dollar amount reflect the action that a prudent person would have taken under the circumstances prevailing when the decision to incur the cost was made. NIH promotes reasonable publication costs to ensure an equitable system for publishing opportunities. However, establishing a particular threshold for what is reasonable may lead to inequitable outcomes in specific circumstances, so NIH is instead providing these Points to Consider in assessing reasonable costs to guide authors and institutions. While NIH may modify this approach in the future, NIH encourages researchers and institutions to consider, when determining whether costs are reasonable:

• Amount of publication cost in relation to NIH award
• Other works researchers may wish to produce during an award period
• Professional and institutional priorities
• Sustainability in terms of the library budget, laboratory budget, and other relevant budgets, if such costs were to be consistently paid
• Relevance of the journal in communicating findings to advance science and/or improve health outcomes
• Suitability of the journal’s target readership for the dissemination of the content

Other Public Works for Which Allowable Costs May be Requested

This Guidance is primarily to help funded authors and institutions understand what costs are allowable under the NIH Public Access Policy. NIH acknowledges that the public dissemination of results from NIH funding does not occur only through peer-reviewed publications. Models for sharing research findings are evolving and allowable costs may be requested for publicly disseminating works reporting on the results of NIH funding that are not subject to the NIH Public Access Policy.

As a reminder, the unallowable costs listed above continue to apply, and works must be made publicly available to qualify for costs.

Reputable Journals and Responsible Conduct of Research

In addition, NIH reiterates its Statement on Article Publication Resulting from NIH Funded Research, a 2017 NIH Guide Notice that encourages authors to publish papers resulting from NIH-funded research in reputable journals. Fees paid to journals that have characteristics described in the Statement may be considered unreasonable. 

Finally, NIH also reiterates the importance of maintaining integrity in science in its Guidance on the requirement for Instruction in the Responsible Conduct of Research, which includes responsible authorship and publication.