A Guide to (PMCID, PMID, NIHMS, DOI) Identifiers and the Mandatory Requirements for NIH Supported Scientific Publications.
As part of its mission to streamline and centralize the infrastructure needed to accelerate translational research across an ever-expanding research enterprise the ISMMS CTSA, ConduITS and the Office of Research Services directs Investigators to resources and support related to scientific regulatory and reporting requirements.
As a companion piece to last month’s article on NIH Public Access Policy, below is a guide to publication identifiers and the mandatory requirements for NIH supported scientific research publications.
PMCID – The PMC PubMed Central reference number. The PMCID is required in NIH grants proposals. It is important to note that a publication that does not comply with this policy and is submitted with a grant may delay or prevent awarding of funds. This number is assigned to a full text article. Only the PMCID number is relevant to the NIH Public Access Policy. PMC overview.
PMID – Refers to the PubMed reference number. PMID numbers link to abstracts. This is a number used by PubMed to index the literature within MEDLINE.
PubMed is a database of citations and abstracts. PubMed Central is an electronic archive of full-text journal articles, offering free access to its contents.
NIHMS ID – When an article is submitted to PubMed Central and the PMCID is pending, it’s given an NIH Manuscript Submission system reference number. The NIHMS ID is valid for 90 days after the publication date of an article.
DOI – (Digital Object Identifier) is a character string used to identify an electronic object and links to the externally published article.
The current APA style for referencing primary literature includes a DOI as a standard part of the citation whenever it is available.
A helpful how to graph of the NIHMS process can be found at the bottom of this page.
Mount Sinai Compliance Statistics
- 91% in compliance from 6/2018 – 6/2021
- 4519 total publications
- 4090 publications in compliance
- 54 publications in process
- 375 publications out of compliance
Administrators and Investigators can also find instructions on how to monitor compliance for publications here.
The NIH Public Access Policy is now mandatory. For more information, see NOT-OD-08-033 and the Public Access website.
For questions about this and other regulatory requirements, please place a Research 411 help desk ticket with the Office of Research Services.
ConduITS is supported by NCATS of the NIH’s CTSA Program. Any use of CTSA-supported resources requires citation of grant number UL1TR001433 awarded to ISMMS in the acknowledgment section of every publication resulting from this support. Adherence to the NIH Public Access Policy is also required.
