Guide

PMC Requirements for Open Access Journals

Practical guide to PubMed Central requirements for open access journals: NIH policies, JATS metadata, licenses, and deposit workflow.

PubMed Central (PMC) is the National Institutes of Health (NIH) open access repository and one of the most consulted biomedical archives in the world. For Latin American journals in health sciences and related disciplines, PMC indexing —and visibility in PubMed— represents a qualitative leap in international discovery. This guide summarizes the technical and editorial requirements an open access journal must meet to participate in PMC.

Types of PMC participation

PMC accepts content through several pathways:

Pathway	Description
Full journal participation	All eligible articles deposited in PMC
Selective participation (NIH mandate)	Only NIH-funded articles
Author self-archiving	Authors deposit accepted manuscripts individually

Journals seeking sustained PMC presence generally choose full participation or agreements with institutional depositors.

Open access editorial requirements

PMC requires deposited content to be immediate open access or comply with accepted explicit embargo policies. For new journals:

Documented open access policy on the website.
Creative Commons or other compatible license (CC BY preferred for maximum reuse).
Valid ISSN (print and/or electronic).
Transparent peer review process.
Full content availability without paywalls.

Declare the license in JATS:

<permissions>
  <copyright-statement>© 2026 The authors</copyright-statement>
  <license license-type="open-access"
          xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">
    <license-p>Distributed under CC BY 4.0.</license-p>
  </license>
</permissions>

XML format: JATS for PMC

PMC accepts JATS XML (Archiving profile) as the preferred deposit format. The document must include complete metadata in <front>, structured body in <body>, and references in <back>.

Root element with mandatory attributes:

<article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
         xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"
         article-type="research-article"
         dtd-version="1.3"
         xml:lang="en">

Critical metadata for PMC

DOI in <article-id pub-id-type="doi"> (without URL prefix).
Authors with affiliations linked via <xref ref-type="aff">.
NIH funding when applicable, in <funding-group> with <award-id>.
Structured abstract with sections when the journal uses them (Background, Methods, Results, Conclusions).
Keywords aligned with MeSH when possible.

<funding-group>
  <award-group>
    <funding-source>
      <institution-wrap>
        <institution>National Institutes of Health</institution>
      </institution-wrap>
    </funding-source>
    <award-id>R01-GM123456</award-id>
  </award-group>
</funding-group>

NIH public access policy

Articles resulting from NIH funding must be available in PMC within 12 months of publication (2024 policy requires immediate access for new grants). Journals must:

Identify NIH funding in metadata.
Facilitate deposit of the accepted manuscript (AAM) or final version.
Maintain persistent links between DOI and PMC record.

Omissions in <funding-group> create mandate non-compliance and may affect authors' future grants.

Equations and technical content

PMC prefers equations in MathML within <disp-formula> or <inline-formula>. Equation images without semantic markup reduce accessibility and may generate warnings in technical review.

<disp-formula id="eq1">
  <label>(1)</label>
  <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
    <mml:mi>E</mml:mi><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mi>m</mml:mi><mml:msup><mml:mi>c</mml:mi><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msup>
  </mml:math>
</disp-formula>

Bibliographic references

PMC favors <element-citation> with reference DOI in <pub-id pub-id-type="doi">. Incomplete references hinder linking in PubMed and reduce citation metrics.

Review the malformed references guide and validate the complete batch before deposit.

Pre-deposit validation

Before submitting to PMC:

Validate against JATS Archiving with the JATS validator.
Verify affiliations, ORCID, and funding.
Confirm figures and tables have unique IDs and associated files.
Review license and publication dates.

Invalid document structure or missing required attribute errors block automated processing.

Typical deposit workflow

Article published open access
    ↓
Complete JATS Archiving generation
    ↓
Internal validation (JATS + PMC rules)
    ↓
Deposit via NIHMS or publisher agreement
    ↓
PMC review / corrections
    ↓
Availability in PMC and link from PubMed

Plan 10–15 business days for the first technical review of a pilot batch.

Differences from SciELO SPS

Both PMC and SciELO start from JATS Archiving but apply different rules:

Aspect	PMC	SciELO SPS
NIH funding	Must declare	Not applicable
License	CC preferred	CC mandatory
Abstract language	English common	Per collection
MathML	Highly recommended	Per discipline

Journals indexed in both systems must produce XML satisfying the most restrictive rule set or maintain separate export profiles.

Support services

EditorialXML JATS XML production includes normalized metadata, structured references, and pre-deposit validation. For editorial review beyond schema checks, see editorial validation.

Conclusion

PMC requirements are not exclusive to North American journals: any open access journal publishing relevant biomedical research can benefit from PMC deposit. Investment in valid JATS Archiving, complete funding metadata, and clear licenses translates into PubMed visibility and NIH mandate compliance for your authors.

Start by validating a pilot article in the JATS validator and review the complete JATS XML guide for standard fundamentals.