April 15, 2026
Dear colleagues,
I am making a personal appeal to every researcher in our community to pay close attention to NIH’s new Public Access Policy that went into effect July 1, 2025. This is especially critical for principal investigators and first authors.
The stakes for the Translational Research Institute (TRI) are incredibly high. If even one paper that cites the TRI NIH grants is out of compliance, the NIH views the entire institute as non-compliant. This isn’t just a minor administrative hurdle – it can slow or even stop our grant renewal for the next year. We need everyone’s full cooperation to protect our collective funding and research mission.
A Major Paradigm Shift
In the past, TRI encouraged citing the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program grant as broadly as possible – even for small-scale consultations or routine use of services like REDCap – because those citations were our primary way of measuring institutional impact for the NIH.
That mindset must now change. Because the consequences of citing the grant without strictly following the above NIH Public Access Policy are so severe, we must be much more judicious. We are moving to a two-tiered approach: a simple “acknowledgment” for general support (e.g., REDCap, biostatistics, informatics,, and/or community engagement consultations, and others), and a formal “grant citation” including the grant number only for work directly funded by the award. (Examples of direct funding would be K12 awards, T32 awards, or pilot grant awards.)
The New Citation Standard
To ensure we remain in compliance and retain our funding, we are asking you to adopt a new mindset regarding how you credit the institute:
- Cite the grant number ONLY IF the award provided direct funding for the research being reported. By using the grant number (UM1 TR004909, K12 TR004924, and T32 TR004918), you are confirming that you will ensure the publication follows the NIH policy. This includes ensuring the paper is assigned a PubMed Central ID (PMCID) – which is different from a PMID – and is available immediately upon publication with no embargo.
- Acknowledge TRI if you used our resources, such as REDCap, biostatistics, informatics, or the Community Engagement Core, but did not receive direct funding. Acknowledgement without using the grant number allows us to track our impact without triggering the same NIH Public Access Policy requirements.
Your Responsibility as the Author and Contract Holder
Compliance is the responsibility of the author because you hold the contract with the journal. If your chosen journal does not automatically deposit the article for immediate availability, you must take the lead in manually depositing the manuscript via the NIHMS system.
You are not navigating this alone. Our team is ready to help you verify compliance pathways before you submit and monitor the deposit process until it is complete. If you have questions about whether to cite or how to ensure immediate availability, contact Mtonya Hunter (HunterLewisMtonya@uams.edu)for direct assistance.
Please review our updated Cite TRI page. By being diligent now, you are ensuring that TRI can continue to support your work and the work of your colleagues for years to come.
Thank you for your partnership.
Laura P. James, M.D.
Director, Translational Research Institute
Associate Vice Chancellor for Clinical and Translational Research
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Special thanks to our colleagues at the C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research CTSA for their collaboration in developing this guidance for our hub.