Jisc Collections

United Kingdom

Status of 2025 ACS Publications & Jisc Agreement

Negotiations are continuing between both parties to reach an agreement for 2025. In the meantime, ACS does not want to negatively impact the UK research community’s ability to read and publish in our journals. As such, ACS has agreed with Jisc to temporarily extend reading and publishing access for participating institutions on a month-to-month basis through April 2025.

Under this extension, institutions will operate under the same cost and operational structure as 2024 until a long-term agreement can be reached*. This means researchers will continue to benefit from:

Full reading access to ACS Publications journal content
Inclusive Gold OA publication of papers accepted for publication in ACS journals

Which ACS journals are included in this agreement?

The table below shows the ACS journals where your article publishing charge (APC) should be covered by your institution. Unless otherwise stated, this agreement covers 100% of the APC.

Journal / Collection		Included in Agreement?
	ACS Central Science	Diamond open access: Free to publish and read
	ACS Omega	APC covered
	ACS Au family (including JACS Au)	APC covered
	Artificial Photosynthesis Chem & Bio Engineering Chemical & Biomedical Imaging Environment & Health Photon Science Polymer Science & Technology Precision Chemistry	Waivers available: see individual journals for information
ACS hybrid journals		APC covered

Publish open access at no cost

If you are a researcher associated with a Jisc Collections participating institution and are the submitting corresponding author, you will have the opportunity to publish your research in any ACS journal under a CC BY open access license with your institution’s support.

Scroll down to see if your institution participates*.

Participating institutions

Institution Name	Institution Name	Institution Name	Institution Name
Abertay University	London Metropolitan University	University of Birmingham	University of Plymouth
Aberystwyth University	Loughborough University	University of Bradford	University of Portsmouth
Aston University	Manchester Metropolitan University	University of Bristol	University of Reading
Babraham Institute	Medical Research Council	University of Cambridge	University of Sheffield
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council	Newcastle University	University of Cardiff	University of Southampton
Birkbeck, University of London	Northumbria University	University of Dundee	University of St Andrews
Cranfield University	Norwich Bioscience Institutes	University of East Anglia	University of Stirling
Durham University	Nottingham Trent University	University of Edinburgh	University of Strathclyde
Edinburgh Napier University	Queen Margaret University	University of Exeter	University of Sunderland
Francis Crick Institute	Queen Mary University of London	University of Glasgow	University of Surrey
Glasgow Caledonian University	Queen's University Belfast	University of Hertfordshire	University of Sussex
Glasgow School of Art	Robert Gordon University	University of Huddersfield	University of the Highlands and Islands
Heriot-Watt University	Royal Conservatoire of Scotland	University of Kent	University of the West of Scotland
Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine	Science & Technology Facilities Council	University of Leeds	University of Ulster
Institute of Cancer Research	Scotland’s Rural College	University of Leicester	University of Warwick
Keele University	Swansea University	University of Lincoln	University of York
King's College London	Teesside University	University of Liverpool	UWE Bristol
Kingston University	University College London	University of Manchester
Lancaster University	University of Aberdeen	University of Nottingham
Liverpool John Moores University	University of Bath	University of Oxford

* Please double check with your librarian or open access manager before making any decisions with respect to this agreement. Because there is an active negotiation, the list of participating institutions may change at any time without notice.

I’m a prospective author, how do I publish open access?

Step 1

Submit your article to the ACS journal of your choice, making sure you are the submitting corresponding author.

Step 2

Ensure your institution affiliation is correct on your profile in the ACS Publishing Center.

Step 3

Check that your affiliation is stated in the body of the manuscript as the corresponding author’s affiliation.

Step 4

When your manuscript has been accepted for publication, you will be automatically prompted with the option to publish open access under your institution’s agreement.

Step 5

Note: Authors publishing in a gold (fully open access) journal will not be required to complete this step.
Confirm that “Yes, I wish to publish open access as per the agreement” is checked, and complete the Journal Publishing Agreement.

JPA confirmation

Step 6

Your institution will be alerted to your open access funding request. If the request is approved, your article will be made immediately available as open access upon publication under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license. There are no charges to pay and no further action required by either you or your institution.

Video demonstration

This demo video shows you how to navigate the Journal Publishing Agreement assistant and publish your research open access under your institutional open access agreement:

Automatic article deposit

Authors who elect to publish open access will automatically have their final published article sent for deposit in PubMed Central. Please note all contents accepted for US PubMed Central are automatically mirrored on Europe PMC — nothing more is required on your part. Authors publishing open access under this agreement will also have the version of record automatically deposited in their institutional repository through the Jisc Publications Router.

Immediate public access to research

Some research funders require authors to make a version of their research article available in a public open access repository immediately upon publication.

You may see this referred to as ‘zero-embargo green open access’.

If you receive funding from an organization with a zero-embargo green open access policy, then your funder may require you to make a version of your manuscript available in an open access repository immediately upon publication. You will need to check the terms of your grant, and/or communicate with your grant officer, to confirm if such a policy applies to your work.

Publishing open access through your institution’s read and publish agreement is compliant with these mandates. ACS Publications will automatically submit the version of record of your article to PubMed Central, and you and your co-authors are free to post your accepted manuscript to any other repository or service required by your funder(s). Combined with public access to your research data, this will ensure compliance with any applicable zero-embargo green open access policy.

For authors who do not already benefit from a read and publish agreement, ACS Publications’ zero-embargo green open access option expands the choices beyond the free 12-month embargo route for those authors to comply with funder mandates by posting their accepted manuscript with a CC BY license to a repository immediately upon acceptance, following payment of an article development charge (ADC).