The Nature Publishing Group (NPG) will launch a new initiative that automatically deposits manuscripts for authors mandated by funding bodies to self-archive.

The free service will place the research works into the PubMed Central (PMC) and UK PubMed Central (UK PMC) depositories. The service is aimed at assisting authors needing to comply with the self-archiving policies of research funders such as the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).

Commenting on the launch, Peter Suber, Editor of the Open Access News blog said, “What's interesting is that NPG is willing to accommodate university mandates as well as funder mandates, and deposit in institutional repositories as well as disciplinary repositories like PMC.” Suber also added that “As far as I know, NPG will be the first publisher willing to make direct deposits into institutional repositories.”

Steven Inchcoombe, Managing Director of NPG said, “We believe this is a valuable service to authors, reducing their workload and making it simple and free to comply with mandates from their institution or funder. We recognise that publishing in an NPG title can be a career high-point for researchers, and want to ensure that our authors enjoy the best possible service from their publisher of choice.”

The scheme will be made available to material submitted to flagship title Nature and its related research publications. The Nature Clinical Practice Cardiovascular Medicine, will also take part with research submitted to its clinical research section. Eventually Nature plans to extend the service out to other journals that wish to participate in the scheme.

“We are announcing our intention early in the process to solicit feedback from the community and to reassure authors that we will be providing this service,” said Inchcoombe, adding, “We invite authors, funding bodies, institutions, archives and repositories to work with us as we move forward.”