Managing Publications that Arise from Resource Sharing

Learn how to manage publications that arise from resource sharing, in compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy.

Does the publication arise from resource sharing, and is the award responsible for public access compliance?

Award personnel authorship: If your NIH award’s personnel are authors on the publication, then you are responsible for its compliance and reporting. Check out Determine Submission Method for instructions.

Resource sharing only: If your NIH award's only contribution to this publication is a shared resource, you are not responsible for its compliance with the public access policy. See "Tracking and reporting papers arising from resource sharing" on Reporting Publications to NIH for more information on how to track and report these publications. Note, if other NIH awards supported the publication, the authors and those awardees are responsible for its compliance.

Awardee Discretion: If award personnel offer advice that does not result in authorship, awardees can decide if their contribution justifies claiming credit for the publication and responsibility for public access compliance or if they should handle the publication as if it arose from resource sharing. See below for examples of the latter.

Definition of resource sharing: Resources, including materials, equipment and data, obtained through an NIH award, that are used for activities outside of the award.

Examples of resource sharing

Resource sharing resulting in a paper: Anne publishes a paper using data and documentation shared from Barbara’s NIH award. Barbara’s lab manager offers some helpful advice to Anne’s data analyst, but no award personnel are authors on the paper. Barbara chooses to neither count nor summarize the findings of Anne’s publication in Barbara’s RPPR.

Summary of publications arising from resource sharing: “We made our dataset publicly available this reporting period and it has already been cited in at least 6 publications. Some of the highlights of these publications include an analysis of… and the discovery that …