Transformative Journals Support for Funders

More publishing options for your researchers

Many research funders aim to increase the amount of research articles that are available to the public. ACS is committed to an open science future, and this includes working with institutions and research funders to make this a reality.

Many of ACS’ hybrid journals – publications which include a mix of open access and subscription content – are classified as Transformative Journals under Plan S. The main features of a transformative journal include:

  • A long-term commitment to becoming fully open access, ‘flipping’ when publishing a minimum of 75% open access content
  • Regular, transparent reporting to authors on the performance of their article – including views, downloads, and other usage information
  • Advocating the benefits of open access to researchers and institutions
  • Full pricing transparency, including reporting on how article processing charges are offset against subscription prices until the journal becomes fully open access
  • Providing authors with a range of publication models so they can meet the requirements of their institutions and funders

 

ACS transformative journal performance

ACS Transformative Journal Report: 2023

  • 28/64 journals hit the 2021-2022 Transformative Journal (TJ) target (44%)
  • 14 journals missed their TJ target by 1%
  • 22 journals missed their TJ target by >1%
  • Total OA growth in hybrid journals (CC BY licensed content only) from 8 to 10%
  • Total OA growth in hybrid journals from 12 to 14% on all CC licensed content (including CC BY-NC-ND)
  • Total OA growth in hybrid journals from Europe from 41% in 2021 to 51% in 2022; all other continents stayed flat at 4% from 2021 to 2022
  • Over our total portfolio (including OA journals), open access accounted for 21% of our published content, up from 18% in 2021

Transparent pricing

ACS Publications strives to set fair prices for its journals and to avoid customers paying a subscription fee for content that has become Open Access (OA) through article publishing charges (APCs).

For journals that publish both subscription and OA articles, the journal’s subscription list price is affected only by changes in non-OA content. Open access articles are not considered when setting the subscription price, nor are APCs affected by non-OA articles. Subscription prices use downloads as one aspect as well. All downloads associated with open access are excluded from any pricing calculation.

We consider a number of other factors when setting subscription prices, changes in the number of journals, issues, etc., usage patterns, costs, and other economic factors.

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