By: Gabrielle Matinkhah, Compliance Specialist, Research Integrity & Compliance Office
On July 8, 2025, NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya released a statement expressing concerns about the financial burden placed on taxpayers by “unreasonably high article processing charges (APC’s)” paid by researchers to publish their work. To address these concerns, Dr. Bhattacharya announced that NIH would implement a cap on allowable publication costs starting in Fiscal Year (FY) 2026.
Following this announcement, the NIH conducted an analysis of recent publication costs. This analysis included a review of publicly available data from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) on average APCs, as well as an examination of requested publication budgets from R01 grants awarded in FY 2025. The NIH also assessed publication costs requested by NIH applicants.
NIH’s analysis of DOAJ data showed a median APC of $950.00 worldwide, and a median APC of $2,040.00 among U.S. journals. The analysis of the 2025 grants awarded showed an estimated average cost per publication to range from $2,565.07 to 3,104.06, with applicants requesting an average of 0.8% of their total direct costs for publication expenses. Based on these findings, the NIH proposed five options for limiting allowable publication costs in a notice issued on July 30, 2025 (see notice here).
Proposed Options for Limiting Publication Costs
- Disallow all publication costs
Under this option, the NIH would “no longer support publication costs through any funding mechanism.” Awardees would be prohibited from using NIH funds to pay for any publication-related expenses.
- Set a limit on allowable costs per publication
This option proposes limiting direct cost to $2,000.00 per publication. While the number of publications funded would not be limited, NIH funds could only cover up to $2,000 for each individual publication.
- Set a limit on allowable costs per publication and allow a higher amount to be paid when peer reviewers are compensated
This option would maintain the $2,000.00 per-publication limit proposed in option 2 but would allow a higher amount of $3,000 per publication for journals that compensate peer reviewers and publicly provide all reviews that resulted from the peer-review process. The additional $1,000.00 is based on an estimated compensation rate of $50.00 per hour, with an average of six hours per peer review, plus administrative costs associated with organizing and processing payments. As with option 2, the number of publications funded would not be limited.
- Set a limit on the total amount of an award that can be spent on publication costs
This option would cap total publication expenses at either 0.8% of an award’s direct costs or $20,000.00, whichever is higher. Awardees would not be permitted to request funding above this threshold. There would be no limit on the cost of an individual publication, only on the total amount that could be allocated to publication expenses.
- Set a limit on both the per publication cost and the total amount of an award that can be spent on publications
This option would adopt the 0.8% or $20,000.00 limit in option 4 with an additional per-publication cap. No more than $6,000.00 could be used for any single publication. This option is intended to curb the use of taxpayer funds for “unreasonably high fees” while still providing awardees with flexibility on how they use their publication funds.
Public Response and Implementation Timeline
The NIH requested responses/comments on these proposed options by September 15, 2025. Hundreds of responses were submitted for review (see PDF of responses here). In the original announcement, the NIH proposed an effective date of January 1, 2026. At the time of this post, no additional announcements or final determinations have been released.
What This Means for Current and Future Awardees
For grants awarded in 2025 that included budgeted direct costs for publication expenses, there should be no changes to the awarded amounts or allowable publication costs. However, for grants awarded on or after January 1, 2026, researchers may be required to comply with the new policy once a final option is formally adopted.
We will continue to monitor NIH announcements as 2026 progresses and will provide updates as additional information becomes available.
Links
Statement on July 8, 2025 by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya: https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/nih-director/statements/nih-establish-new-policies-allowable-publication-costs
Notice NOT-OD-25-138 “Request for Information on Maximizing Research Funds by Limiting Allowable Publishing Costs” released on July 30, 2025: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-138.html
PDF of Public Responses to NOT-OD-25-138: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://osp.od.nih.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Compiled-Public-Comments-on-the-RFI-on-Maximizing-Research-Funds-by-Limiting-Allowable-Publishing-Costs.pdf
Questions? Email: publicaccess@utah.edu
