Upcoming Transition of the Public Access Compliance Monitor (PACM) in Support of the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy

As shared in a previous National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Insights post, NCBI at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) is making ongoing updates to several services to support implementation of the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy, which went into effect on July 1, 2025. As part of the effort, NCBI has been exploring alternative strategies for helping institutions identify their funded articles and track manuscript submissions.

After September 30, 2026, the services that NCBI offers to assist institutions with public access compliance monitoring will move from the Public Access Compliance Monitor (PACM) to a new service within the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS). After September 30 PACM will no longer be available.

The new service, the NIHMS Institutional Monitor, is now available to assist institutions who have received NIH awards to track the status of Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) submitted to the NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) system.

PACM, a service that provides institutions with information about the compliance status of journal articles associated with that institution, will remain available simultaneously with the NIHMS Institutional Monitor through September 30, 2026 to allow institutions time to familiarize themselves with the new system and integrate it into their workflow as necessary.

Who can access the new system?

Users representing institutions, and who have been assigned the necessary role within eRA Commons, can access the NIHMS Institutional Monitor. This includes all institutions who currently have access to PACM.

Institutional users can access the NIHMS Institutional Monitor here by selecting the eRA Commons log-in option.

How is NIHMS Institutional Monitor different from PACM?

The NIHMS Institutional Monitor does not support the same functionality as PACM as it does not include information about Final Published Articles submitted directly to PMC by participating publishers and does not support access through an API. However, this new service provides more timely access to AAM submission status information to support compliance monitoring, and allows institutions to take other actions, such as following up on stalled manuscripts.

Additionally, PACM continues to use the 2008 NIH Public Access Policy rules in determining publication compliance status. The NIHMS Institutional Monitor aligns with the requirements of the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy which went into effect on July 1, 2025.

Please note that like PACM, the NIHMS Institutional Monitor is an information resource only, and does not substitute for official reporting from the institution to NIH.

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[Editor's note: Originally published on July 27, 2026 in NCBI Insights. The NCBI Insights post cited in the first sentence was also published in the Technical Bulletin (see article).]