Participation Agreements
As part of the Pre-Production phase of the Evaluation and Setup Process, the publisher completes a formal PMC Participation Agreement with NLM. The three types of agreements correspond to the participation options available to journals and publishers:
Please see the Agreement Types section on the PMC Policies page for the eligibility requirements for each participation option.
Full Participation
Under the Full Participation agreement, the publisher commits to depositing the complete contents of a journal, starting with a particular volume/issue or publication date.
Who Should Consider a Full Participation Agreement?
- Journals that would like to have a complete archive of their contents made available in PMC (may be an open access or subscription journal that has an embargo), subject to PMC's Back Content Policy
- Journals seeking to comply with the MEDLINE Electronic Journals Policy
NIH Portfolio
Under the NIH Portfolio participation agreement, the publisher commits to depositing all NIH-funded articles (as defined by the NIH Public Access Policy) from a journal, starting with a particular volume/issue or publication date. The publisher may choose to also deposit additional, non-NIH-funded articles under this agreement.
Who Should Consider an NIH Portfolio Agreement?
- Subscription journals that publish a high volume of articles supported by NIH (or another PMC-participating funder) and wish to deposit the final published version in PMC on behalf of their authors
- Journals must be currently indexed in MEDLINE to be eligible for NIH Portfolio
Selective Deposit
The Selective Deposit participation agreement is used by publishers who want to deposit select articles to PMC from a collection of journals.
Who Should Consider a Selective Deposit Agreement?
- Publishers with hybrid journals that publish a significant amount of open access research in the biomedical and life sciences
- Publishers who wish to support the policies of funding agencies (e.g., Wellcome Trust, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) that require articles be made available in PMC under specific license terms (see PMC and Research Funder Policies for details)
Additional Journals Amendment
A publisher should use an amendment to add journal(s) to an existing Full Participation or NIH Portfolio agreement.