From the Director: A Personal Appeal Regarding NIH Open Access Compliance
I am making a personal appeal to every researcher in our community to pay close attention to the NIH’s new open access policy. This is especially critical for Principal Investigators and first authors.
The stakes for our center are incredibly high: if even one paper that cites our Wright Center NIH grants is out of compliance, the NIH views the entire Wright Center as non-compliant. This isn’t just a minor administrative hurdle—it can slow or even stop our grant renewal for the next year. We need everyone’s full cooperation to protect our collective funding and research mission.
A Major Paradigm Shift
In the past, we encouraged citing the CTSA grant as broadly as possible—even for small-scale consultations or routine use of services like REDCap and OnCore—because those citations were our primary way of measuring institutional impact for the NIH.
That mindset must now change. Because the consequences of citing the grant without strictly following the NIH Open Access policy are so severe, we must be much more judicious. We are moving to a two-tiered approach: a simple “acknowledgment” for general support, and a formal “grant citation” including the grant number only for work directly funded by the award.
The New Citation Standard
To ensure we remain in compliance and retain our funding, we are asking you to adopt a new mindset regarding how you credit the center:
- Cite the grant number ONLY IF the award provided direct funding for the research being reported. By using the grant number (UM1TR004360, K12TR004364, or T32TR004362), you are confirming that you will ensure the publication follows the NIH open access policy. This includes ensuring the paper is assigned a PubMed Central ID (PMCID)—which is not the same as a PMID—and is available immediately upon publication with no embargo.
- Acknowledge the center if you used our resources (such as REDCap, OnCore, Biostatistics, or the CARI MRI facility) but did not receive direct funding. Acknowledgement allows us to track our impact without triggering the same NIH Public Access requirements.
Your Responsibility as the Author and Contract Holder
Compliance is the responsibility of the author because you hold the contract with the journal. If your chosen journal does not automatically deposit the article for immediate availability, you must take the lead in manually depositing the manuscript via the NIHMS system.
You are not navigating this alone. Our team is ready to help you verify compliance pathways before you submit and monitor the deposit process until it is complete. If you have questions about whether to cite or how to ensure immediate availability, please reach out to our team at [email protected] or contact Lillie Lattimore ([email protected]) for direct assistance.
Please review our updated Cite and Submit page today. By being diligent now, you are ensuring the Wright Center can continue to support your work and the work of your colleagues for years to come.
Thank you for your partnership.
F. Gerard “Gerry” Moeller, M.D.
Director, Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research