American Heart Association public access policy

What do I need to submit?

AHA’s Open Science Policy requires that all journal articles resulting from AHA funding (“outbound” research) be made freely available in PubMed Central within 12 months of publication. All new grants awarded after July 1, 2014 must comply with the outbound public access policy. Active grant holders are strongly encouraged to adhere to the policy. AHA encourages authors to deposit the final, published version of an article as it appears on the journal's web site into PubMed Central. However, some publishers require deposits to PubMed Central be made in the form of an author's final, peer reviewed manuscript of an article.

Original research articles published in the 11 subscription model AHA journals (“inbound” research) are made freely available on the journal website within 6 months after publication. Non-original research articles are made freely available on the journal website within 12 months. Scientific statements and clinical practice guidelines are made freely available immediately on publication.

Do I have the rights?

Authors own the original copyright to materials they write. Consistent with individual arrangements with authors' employing institutions, authors often transfer some or all of these rights to the publisher when the journal agrees to publish their paper. Some publishers may ask authors to transfer these rights when the paper is first submitted to the journal.

Authors should work with the publisher before any rights are transferred to ensure that all conditions of the AHA Open Science Policy can be met. Authors should avoid signing any agreements with publishers that do not allow the author to comply with the AHA Open Science Policy. If the publisher agreement does not provide for your right to make the article publicly available in PubMed Central no later than 12 months after the official date of publication, you will need to adapt it. See the Open Science FAQ for language to include in the agreement before returning it to the publisher.

Where do I submit?

The AHA has adopted the deposit procedures put in place by the Health Research Alliance (HRA). The HRA has arranged for its member organizations (including the AHA) to establish a mechanism by which grant recipients can deposit papers directly into PubMed Central, see below.

When do I need to submit?

Submit journal articles to PMC within 12 months of publication.

How do I submit?

This process will take at least 24 hours to complete.

Log into the HRA portal with your Gmail credentials.
Find your award and check the boxes next to the awards that you want to attach to your Gmail account. Click ‘Save My Grants’ to attach selected grants to your account. After completing this step, wait at least 24 hours. [Note: If you don’t find your award listed, get in touch with your point of contact at the funding agency. We recommend that you check the terms of each award before attaching them to your Gmail account.]
If the journal publisher does not deposit publications for PMC, follow these instructions to use the NIH Manuscript Submission System to deposit your manuscript. Otherwise, skip to the next step – required by all awardees regardless of whether or not the publisher deposits publications into PMC.
Log into NCBI with your Gmail credentials (not eRA Commons credentials).
Associate your Gmail account with an existing NCBI account.
Follow the link to “Manage my Bibliography” and associate each publications with the funding agency award. Your HRA member award should be listed under the “HRA awards” tab. You must link your publications to your funding, even if the publisher deposits publications in PMC for you.