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Open Access Publishing Agreements: American Chemical Society (ACS)

Discover the current open access publishing agreements in place, allowing options for publishing research open access at no cost to the author.

Agreement details

This agreement gives current staff and students at participating institutions:

  • Access to current content from ACS journals.
  • The ability to make articles accepted for publication in eligible ACS journals open access, without the author paying an article processing charge (APC). Further details below.

Agreement period: 1 January 2021 – 31 December 2025.
OA quota per year: 111 articles, to be used by participating members on a first-com-first-served basis. 

UPDATE: APC QUOTA IS FULLY USED UP as of 5th September, 2025. This agreement is now closed for the remainder of the year.

What journals are included?

All ACS journals.
List of all eligible journals.

Instructions for authors

Eligible authors: the corresponding author is a current staff member or student of a participating member institution at the time an article is accepted for publication.
Eligible article types: any peer-reviewed articles. 
OA publishing license: CC-BY only.

Eligibility is based on article's acceptance date.

Note to authors publishing Green Open Access (where a funder mandate to publish with a CC-BY license applies):

ACS charges Article Development Charge (ADC) for zero-embargo green open access. ACS allows authors with a funder or institutional mandate to publish in a subscription journal and deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) in an institutional repository. This is subject to an Article Development Charge and permits the application of a CC-BY license. More information on publisher's website.