NIH Public Access Policy

The Cancer Center Support Grant
When MD Anderson authors submit a paper for publication, they must acknowledge the Cancer Center Support Grant (P30 CA016672) in the paper's funding acknowledgment section.

The acknowledgment should be listed as follows:

• Supported by the National Institutes of Health/NCI under award number P30CA016672 and used the [name of the CCSG shared resource(s)]*

*if applicable

Cite Your Publication Using a PMCID or NIHMSID

Papers reported in NIH applications, proposals, and reports must be cited using a PMCID or NIHMSID.

• If it is three (3) or more months after the publication date, cite the paper using the PMCID
• If it is less than three (3) months after the publication date, and no PMCID has been assigned to the paper, *cite the paper using the NIHMSID.

*This provides provisional compliance. Upon the three (3) month mark, the publication's compliance status will change to "non-compliant" and a PMCID must be provided as evidence of compliance with the NIH PAP. 

No PMCID or NIHMSID is Available

When no PMCID or NIHMSID is available, this is likely due to the following:

• The paper was recently submitted to PubMed Central by a journal and processing is not yet complete. In this case, cite the paper using the tag "PMC Journal - In Process" at the end of the citation.
  • Does your journal submit on the author's behalf? Check here.
• The paper has not been submitted to PubMed Central (either by the journal or author). In this case: a.) If the paper is published in a journal that submits to PubMed Central on the author's behalf, contact the journal. b.) If the paper is published in a journal that does not submit to PubMed Central on the author's behalf, initiate the submission process via the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS). Until a NIHMSID is generated, no proof of compliance can be provided. 

*Examples of Citations 

• PMCID
  • Wöckel A, Albert US, Janni W, Scharl A, Kreienberg R, Stüber T. The screening, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-Up of breast cancer. Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2018;115(18):316-323. PMCID: PMC5987060
• NIHMSID
  • Lawrenson R, Lao C, Stanley J, et al. Impact of diabetes on surgery and radiotherapy for breast cancer. Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2023;199(2):305-314. NIHMS ID: NIHMS44136

*Citation data has been altered for the sake of providing examples.  

Compliance Reports

Authors can use the My Bibliography reference tool to create a report of publications and their compliance status.

1. Go to PubMed > Click the Login button located in the top right of the window
2. Select the Login.gov login option > If you do not have Login.gov credentials, create an account
   • Alternatively, select the eRA Commons login option
3. Click on your username located in the top right of the window > Select Publications
4. Sort by > Select "Public Access Compliance"
5. Select the citations you wish to include in the report > Click Manage citations > Select “Compliance report (PDF)” 
6. Export pop-up > Enter the name to appear in the report and a starting page number. Do not enter a page number if you prefer to enter the page numbers directly on the report pages.
7. Click the Download PDF button

Detailed instructions with screenshots