We're Updating Our Hold for Publication Policy

We all know the timeline for publishing research papers can be long and unpredictable. Fortunately, you can submit plasmids at any point in that process and we provide an option to keep your deposit on hold from public access until the article is published. This policy gives us time to complete necessary quality control and legal approvals so the plasmids are ready for distribution as soon as the paper is published, while giving you peace of mind that your materials will only be made public when you’re ready. Plus, what better addition to peer review than having your plasmids sequenced and openly registered for other scientists to use?

We take this Hold for Publication policy seriously and appreciate the trust you’ve put in us when you choose this status for your plasmids. In fact, almost half of all new deposits start out with this hold! You will always have control over when your plasmids are distributed. Next month, we are making two changes to the policy that will make the process a bit easier and more efficient.

Our original policy was straightforward, but cumbersome: depositors had to email us with permission to release their plasmids for distribution, and we’ve found that this step was sometimes unclear or missed altogether. Emailing Addgene might not be as high on the published-paper-celebration checklist as champagne or cupcakes, or maybe the lab member originally responsible for the deposit had already moved on to their next position. We do routinely review deposits that are left in the hold status and reach out to depositors about them, but we all know how easy it is to miss an email in a busy inbox.

Updated policy

As of July 1, 2025, we are updating our Hold for Publication policy with two changes that will help us ensure that plasmids don’t get left behind in this status — a win-win situation for all.

1. Addgene will release plasmids on hold if they are clearly described in a journal publication.
2. Plasmids will be released 3 years after the deposit date.

Don’t worry, we’ll let you know before these releases happen (and congratulate you on your paper!). And as always, we won’t distribute materials with unresolved sequencing issues or if you’ve asked to cancel the deposit due to experimental problems, legal restrictions, or any other reason. But this way, as soon as we become aware the related journal article has been published we’ll get the plasmids online for distribution instead of risking leaving them on hold indefinitely.

Of course, the fastest way for us to release your plasmids is still for you to notify us as soon as your article is published. As much as we’d like to, we can’t keep up with every paper that comes out! So, before you gather the team for a toast to the new paper (or after — hey, another reason to celebrate!), send us a quick email at deposit@addgene.org with the citation and your deposit or plasmid ID numbers and we’ll be happy to update the plasmids to add the citation and release the hold.

Increasing impact

Making the plasmids available as soon as your paper is published helps maximize the potential impact of your work. Plus, it’s costly for us to process and store materials that aren’t distributed or for our teams to keep searching, emailing, and waiting for replies. This updated policy will help our teams have clear workflows and keep things moving internally.

And remember, a publication isn’t required to share your plasmids! You can make your deposit available before publication and we can update the plasmids’ citation when the paper comes out later. Or, if a project isn’t working out as planned, but you still hope somebody will find the plasmids useful, we’re happy to distribute unpublished materials.

What about preprints?

Addgene supports preprints and encourages authors to share their materials as soon as possible, whether alongside a journal article, a preprint, or without any paper at all. Posting preprints and openly sharing materials are both excellent ways to provide transparency, support reproducibility, and accelerate science. We encourage preprint authors to deposit materials without a hold or to release the hold as soon as the preprint is posted in order to support these goals. And we can update your plasmids’ citation to the final journal article version any time later.

We recognize that a preprint isn’t necessarily a clear sign that you are ready for us to release your plasmids, so we won’t immediately release preprint-associated materials the way we will with journal articles. But we do encourage you to consider sharing them openly as soon as that preprint is online!

Thanks for reading, and for depositing plasmids with Addgene! We'll continue to review our policies to make sure they meet our goals, maintain your trust, and meet the community’s needs, so please let us know what you think. We appreciate your feedback. If you have questions about depositing, check out our website, Help Center, or email us at deposit@addgene.org.