Open Science

Helping researchers increase transparency, expand access, and broaden the range of research outputs

What is open science?

Open science is a collection of movements that aim to expand the transparency of, and access to, all aspects of the research process beyond the traditional peer reviewed article. Open science encompasses open data and code, open peer review, preprints, open access to publications, and more. This expansion supports a global effort to encourage widespread collaboration and scientific exploration, and aims to amplify the beneficial impact of primary research on society.

Interview with James Milne

Dr. James Milne, President of ACS Publications, discusses open science at ACS Publications.

ACS has a long history of supporting open science. We provide a variety of platforms, processes, products, and service enhancements that support open science goals and mandates.

ACS' history of supporting open science

Supporting open science

Established in 2017, ChemRxiv is the world’s open access preprint archive for chemistry. Co-owned and collaboratively managed by ACS and four other leading scientific societies across the world that ensure its technical and operational sustainability, ChemRxiv enables efficient and timely dissemination of chemistry knowledge.

Open access journals

ACS Central Science, ACS Omega, JACS Au, and journals in the ACS Au family are fully open access, with 100% of published content freely accessible under a range of OA license types. We also publish a number of fully open access journals in partnership with research institutions.

Hybrid / transformative journals

Any article selected for publication in an ACS journal can be published under an OA license. To enable broad participation, ACS offers APC (article publishing charge) discounts to authors that are ACS Members or are employed at qualified subscribing institutions.

Read and publish agreements

ACS offers a variety of read and publish agreements to institutions and funders all over the world. These agreements are proving instrumental in growing the proportion of research articles that are published under open access licenses.

Zero-embargo green open access

ACS offers a compliant route for authors who are required to make their accepted manuscripts available immediately upon acceptance, in rare cases where authors are not already covered by a read and publish agreement or grant / personal funding for gold open access.

ACS encourages authors to make their data freely available under our Open Data Policy, now applicable to all ACS journals.

Transparent peer review

ACS currently offers transparent peer review in a selection of our open access journals.

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CAS Common Chemistry

Public access to authoritative information covering almost 500,000 substances.

Interview with Sybille Geisenheyner

Sybille Geisenheyner, Director of Open Science Strategy & Licensing at ACS Publications, discusses open science at ACS Publications.

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Open access ACS open science policies ACS read and publish agreements Our open science story