Earth as seen from the International Space Station (ISS)

Research Access

Publication Management | Journal Article Versions | STI Program Involvement | Important Links | Contact Info

What is Research Access

The Research Access initiative is part of the agency’s framework for increasing public access to scientific publications and digital scientific data.

OSTP Memorandum

The Research Access initiative follows the release of White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s (OSTP) memorandum “Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research,” to ensure federally funded research is available to the public within one year of publication.

Public Access to Results of NASA-Funded Research

NASA answered the OSTP mandate by creating:

An agency plan entitled “NASA Plan for Increasing Access to the Results of Scientific Research”
Associated policy, NPD 2230.1, Research Data and Publication Access.

Together, they outline a framework for activities to increase public access to scientific publications and digital scientific data resulting from NASA-funded research.

Publication Management

NASA-funded authors and co-authors (both internal and external) are required to deposit the accepted manuscript version of their peer-reviewed scientific publications and associated data into the agency’s accepted manuscript repository, NASA PubSpace. This excludes patents, publications that contain material governed by personal privacy, export control, proprietary restrictions, or national security law or regulations.

Attention: Beginning February 1, 2022, the mechanism used to submit to NASA PubSpace will move from the NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) system to the NASA STI Program. Further guidance and information will be available on the NASA STI Program website .

For submission instructions, visit our Submit to PubSpace page .

Journal Article Versions Explained

Preprint – The journal article version that is submitted to the journal publisher to request acceptance and publication.
Accepted Manuscript – The version of the journal article that has been accepted for publication by a journal publisher and includes changes requested by the publisher and made by the author during the peer-review process. It typically includes the same content as the published article in the journal but frequently (not always) does not include the publisher’s form or format. This is the version collected for PubSpace.
Reprint – The version that is published in the journal by the publisher. It will typically have the date of publication and volume number. Some Federal agencies and publishers also call these the Version of Record manuscript.

STI Program Involvement

The NASA STI Program manages several areas of the Research Access activity as part of our mission to support the advancement of knowledge and contributing to U.S. competitiveness in space science and aerospace research and development.

The STI Program supports the Research Access activity by:

Staffing the NASA Research Access Help
Processing and depositing internal author manuscripts and supplemental data to NIH
Maintaining NASA external author funding and ORCID database
Providing support to external authors utilizing the NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) system and assisting with deposits of author manuscripts and supplemental data
Providing support to all NASA centers for this Research Access activity
Maintaining a comprehensive collection of NASA-authored and NASA-funded publications in the NASA STI Repository

Important Links

Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the NASA Research Access Help Desk.

NASA Research Access Help Desk

Contact Form: Research Access Help Desk


	The NASA STI Program manages NASA’s US Government ORCID Consortium membership. The partnership provides the ability to manage Persistent Identifiers (PIDs), enhance services to the STI Repository, and align NASA submission processes with common publishing practices. Learn more about the US Government ORCID Consortium .