ACS Transformative Journals

Transformative journals are subscription-access or hybrid publications that have committed to publishing an increasing number of open access articles in line with targets set by cOAlition S, and an eventual transition to 100% open access.

The main features of a transformative journal include:

• A long-term commitment to becoming fully open access
• 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

Many research funders that have signed up to Plan S will cover the full costs of open access publication in transformative journals. This support is being offered until 31 December 2024. You can use our Journal Finder tool to find the best ACS Publications journal for your research.

You can also check if your funder is a Plan S signatory, and to what extent they support authors in publishing open access, on the Plan S Implementation Roadmap.

The data linked below identifies the open access publication targets for each ACS transformative journal in 2022, based on 2021 data.

Download ACS Transformative Journal targets

Please note: Plan S targets are based on an absolute percentage of articles published in a journal under a CC BY license within a specific year. The totals shown in the final column above are calculated based on 2021 papers – if a journal publishes more or fewer articles in 2022 than in 2021, the actual number of open access papers will be subject to change.