Research Guides: U.S. Federal Funders' Public Access Policies: Finding a Publisher

Publishers and Journals Allowing Immediate Sharing of Author Accepted Manuscripts

The following publishers and/or journals allow deposit of some version of the article, typically the accepted manuscript version (after peer review), in a nonprofit repository with no embargo even when the article is not available open access on the journal's website. These publishers' policies are compatible by default with federal funders' zero-embargo public access policies, such as the NIH Public Access Policy effective July 1, 2025.

Alternatively, you can publish open access at no cost to you by taking advantage of one of the Libraries' open access publishing agreements. Learn more at Agreements Enabling APC-Free Publishing.

Important! Publishers' policies can change without notice. Before submitting a manuscript to a publisher, always check the current sharing policy. To check a specific journal's policy on sharing accepted manuscripts, use Open Policy Finder from Jisc or contact scholcomm@listserv.cc.emory.edu.

This list is not exhaustive, and we make every effort to keep it current. If you have additions or corrections for this list, please contact scholcomm@listserv.cc.emory.edu. This list is adapted from Green OA by Penn State Libraries licensed CC BY 4.0.

AAAS/Science
"Authors of peer-reviewed research submitted to a Science subscription journal as of January 1, 2023, may post the Accepted Version of their paper on their personal or institutional archival website or in a repository of their choice immediately after publication."
AIAA
"Authors of journal articles, magazine articles, and meeting papers published by AIAA may post their articles and papers on their private websites and deposit them in their institutional repositories, so long as access to the website is free of charge. ... Posting to an institutional repository is limited to those to which the author has a direct relationship (e.g., academic department repository, university repository, corporate intranet, agency repository, laboratory website, funding sources, or similar) including those that have deposit mandates. ... The conference papers and journal articles posted must be either the submitted (or electronic pre-print) version of a conference paper or the final accepted manuscript (revised to incorporate review recommendations) of an article to be published in one of AIAA’s journals."
AIP
"For institutional or funder-designated repositories (e.g., DOE Pages): You may deposit the accepted manuscript immediately after acceptance, using the credit line formatting below."
American Mathematical Society (AMS)
"An author’s accepted manuscript (AAM) or other draft version of the work, either before or after peer review, may be reproduced under a CC BY Creative Commons License by any means for educational and scientific purposes by the author(s)."
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
"Otherwise known as 'Self-Archiving' or 'Posting Rights', all ACM published authors of magazine articles, journal articles, and conference papers retain the right to post the pre-submitted (also known as 'pre-prints'), submitted, accepted, and peer-reviewed versions of their work in any and all of the following sites: Author's Homepage, Author's Institutional Repository, Any Repository legally mandated by the agency or funder funding the research on which the work is based..."
BMJ
"BMJ Group offers a flexible Green Open Access policy that enables authors to meet the requirements of their funders or institutions. This includes full compliance with the updated NIH Public Access Policy, which means that NIH-funded authors can deposit their accepted manuscripts with zero embargo as per the new guidelines."
Emerald
"Our green open access route offers all Emerald journal authors or book chapter authors the option to make their research immediately and openly available upon official publication, free from payment. ... You may deposit your author accepted manuscript at any point, but it must not be made publicly accessible until official publication (i.e. as soon as it appears on Emerald Insight in its final typeset version)."
European Mathematical Society (EMS) Press
"For articles not published open access, EMS Press grants authors or their affiliated institutions the right to deposit the author accepted manuscript on institutional repositories and preprint servers. For clarification, this is the version of the article as accepted for publication, including all changes made during the peer review process, but not the version which is finally published and distributed by EMS Press."
IEEE
"IEEE policy provides that authors are free to follow funder public access mandates to post accepted articles in repositories. When posting in a repository, the IEEE embargo period is 24 months. However, IEEE recognizes that posting requirements and embargo periods vary by funder. IEEE authors may comply with requirements to deposit their accepted articles in a repository per funder requirements where the embargo is less than 24 months."
JAMA and JAMA Network
"Beginning in 2023, JAMA and all of the journals in the JAMA Network will adopt a new policy that permits authors of original research investigations to deposit their accepted manuscript in a public repository of their choosing immediately on the day that the manuscript is published by the JAMA Network."
Johns Hopkins University Press
"Hopkins Press journal authors are permitted to deposit a digital copy of their final manuscript in their noncommercial institutional repository, provided the repository is not discipline based and does not accept contributions from outside the institution. If required by law, authors may also include their final manuscript in an OA archive such as PubMed Central. This self-archiving policy pertains to the final manuscript version of the article only and not to the final published version in any format, including PDF. Deposits must credit Hopkins Press as publisher and identify the appropriate copyright holder."
Lippincott
"If the article is not published as open access, authors can comply with the above stated NIH policy by depositing their accepted manuscript to PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication."
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
"Authors are welcome to post the accepted version of their manuscript to an institutional repository, funder repository, or personal website immediately upon publication of the Version of Record."
MIT Press
"In addition to the rights already granted to the author in their publication agreement, MIT faculty authors also retain the following non-exclusive rights:
1. An embargo-free right to provide, or to allow the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to provide, an electronic version of the final manuscript of the Article, including all modifications from the peer-review process and all graphics and supplemental materials associated with the manuscript (hereinafter the "peer-reviewed manuscript), to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central database ("PMC") at the time the Article is accepted for publication and to take any additional steps reasonably necessary to comply with NIH's Revised Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research."
Penn State University Press
"Authors of articles for all Pennsylvania State University Press journals except Pennsylvania History are permitted to post the peer-reviewed, pre-copyedited versions (generally known as 'postprints') for 'open access' on their own personal web sites or deposit them in the institutional repositories of the universities that employ them immediately on publication of the issue of the journal in which they appear, subject only to the condition that a link be provided to the final published electronic version at the web site of JSTOR or Project Muse."
PNAS
"Immediately upon publication, authors may deposit their accepted manuscript in their funding body’s archive or designated noncommercial institutional repository, under the same license as the published article, provided that a link to the published article in PNAS is included. The accepted manuscript is the version of the article that was accepted for publication after peer review and prior to copyediting by PNAS. Authors may make their deposited accepted manuscripts publicly available immediately upon publication by PNAS."
Sage
"You may share the Original Submission or Accepted Manuscript at any time after your paper is accepted and in any format. Your sharing of the Original Submission or Accepted Manuscript may include posting a downloadable copy on any website, saving a copy in any repository or network, sharing a copy through any social media channel, and distributing print or electronic copies."

Publishers NOT Allowing Immediate Sharing of Author Accepted Manuscripts

The following publishers require an embargo period for sharing the accepted manuscript version of an article being published via the toll-access (subscription) option. These publishers' policies are not compatible with federal funders' zero-embargo public access policies, such as the NIH Public Access Policy effective July 1, 2025.

Remember, you can publish open access at no cost to you by taking advantage of one of the Libraries' open access publishing agreements. Learn more at Agreements Enabling APC-Free Publishing.

This list is not exhaustive, and we make every effort to keep it current. If you have additions or corrections for this list, please contact scholcomm@listserv.cc.emory.edu.

Cell Press (Elsevier)
"Authors of papers published by Cell Press can share their accepted manuscript (the post-peer-review version that does not incorporate copy editing and proofing) via non-commercial hosting platforms, such as their institutional repository, after a posting embargo period has elapsed." Embargo periods listed on another page (https://www.cell.com/open-access) range from 6 to 12 months.
Elsevier
"Authors can share their accepted manuscript: Publicly, after the embargo period . . . Via non-commercial hosting platforms, such as their institutional repository." See also "Our journal specific embargo periods are evidence-based and typically range from 12-24 months. There are, however, exceptions which can be both longer and shorter than 12-24 months." (https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/sharing/policy-faq#1-sharing-policy)
Springer Nature
"Where articles are published via the subscription route, Springer Nature permits authors to self-archive the accepted manuscript (AM), on their own personal website and/or in their funder or institutional repositories, for public release after an embargo period (see the table below)." The table on this page shows embargo periods of 6 to 12 months.
Taylor & Francis
"Embargoes usually apply if you are posting the AM [accepted manuscript] to an institutional or subject repository, or to a scholarly collaboration network such as ResearchGate. Embargo periods are typically 12 months for our Science, Technology and Medicine portfolio and 18 months for our Social Sciences and Humanities portfolio, running from the date of publication of the final article (Version of Record) i.e. date of first online publication."
Wiley
"Before the embargo* has passed authors may, in addition to posting metadata for the article, post the Accepted Version as a closed deposit (hidden until the embargo lifts) on their personal website, in their company or institutional repository, in not-for-profit subject-based preprint servers or repositories . . . . *There is an embargo period of 12 months from publication for scientific, medical, and technical (STM) journals and 24 months from publication for social science and humanities (SSH) journals."

Retaining the Right to Archive Your Work

Many publishing agreements allow authors to place their work in a repository ("self-archive" it) by default, sometimes with limitations on when, where, and what version of the article you can self-archive. When a journal's default agreement does not permit self-archiving, some authors negotiate to retain that right.

Open Policy Finder
- Searchable database of publisher's policies on self-archiving journal articles on the web or in OA repositories
BTAA Author Addendum (PDF)
This contract addendum from the BTAA enables authors to retain additional rights.
SPARC Author Addendum
This contract addendum from SPARC enables authors to retain additional rights.

Article Versions

Publishing agreements often distinguish between three different versions of an article when describing what self-archiving is acceptable:

Pre-print (or preprint)
- Version submitted to journal (pre-refereeing)
- Also called the "submitted manuscript" or "submitted version"
Post-print (or postprint)
- Author’s final version, post-refereeing, without publisher’s formatting
- Also called the "accepted manuscript" or "final accepted version"
Final version
- Version as it appears in journal
- Also called the "version of record,” the "publisher's version," or the "PDF version" (the latter is a misnomer)

Disciplinary & Other Repositories

Open Access Directory's List of Disciplinary Repositories
The OA Directory maintains this collaboratively-edited list of discipline-based open access repositories. Most are open to deposits regardless of the author's institutional affiliation.
OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories)
This resources allows users to search for open access repositories based on various features.
arXiv
The arXiv, hosted by Cornell University, hosts research articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, nonlinear sciences, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics.
OSFPreprints
This search engine from the Open Science Foundation allows users to search across more than 2.2 million article preprints on servers like arXiv.

U.S. Federal Funder Policies

“Public access” is a term often used by federal funding agencies mandating that research results, including data, from projects they have funded be made publicly available within a certain time frame according to the terms of the agency's policy.

Article and Data Sharing Requirements by Federal Agency
This resource from SPARC catalogs article and data sharing policies from U.S. federal funders. It includes the requirements of AHRQ, ASPR, CDC, Dept. of Defense, Dept. of Education, Dept. of Energy, Dept. of Transportation, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, NSF, Smithsonian, USAID, USDA, USGS, and Veterans Affairs.
OSTP Mandate: Public Access Policies for Federally Funded Research
Provides list of federal agencies with public access plans and links to them.
Complying with the NSF Public Access Policy
This page from the Office of Scholarly Communications and Copyright explains how to comply with the NSF's 2016 public access policy.