A draft policy for open access to NIH-funded research was officially released by the health agency on Sept. 3 and posted for comment on its website. The released plan closely resembles one that had been suggested by Congress (C&EN, Sept. 6, page 14).

Under the proposed plan, manuscripts of research reports funded in whole or in part by NIH grants, cooperative agreements, contracts, or fellowships would have to be submitted to PubMed Central—the agency’s free digital archive of biomedical research—once the manuscript was accepted for publication. At that point, the manuscript would have been through peer review and would contain any resulting changes. It would be posted on PubMed Central six months after journal publication.

The open-access plan was released following a series of meetings between NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni and publishers, scientists, and public interests groups. NIH will accept comments on the plan for 60 days, after which a final plan should be released. The draft policy is available at http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-04-064.html.