American Chemical Society’s first open access journal wins PROSE innovation award

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10, 2017 — ACS Central Science, the first fully open access journal published by the American Chemical Society (ACS), has won the PROSE Journal/Award for Innovation. Presented by the Association of American Publishers, the PROSE awards recognize excellence in professional and scholarly publishing. The PROSE innovation award, which acknowledges the unique achievements of new journals, is issued at the judges’ discretion and is not presented every year.

“I congratulate the ACS Central Science editorial team for this well-deserved honor,” says Brian Crawford, Ph.D., president of the ACS Publications Division. “Every issue of ACS Central Science helps raise the profile of the myriad ways that chemistry benefits mankind. It leverages technology to provide strong user experiences, in a fully open access environment and with no publication costs to authors or readers.”

First published in April 2015, ACS Central Science is led by Editor-in-Chief Carolyn R. Bertozzi of Stanford University, and has a staff of six senior editors and a 79-member editorial advisory board.

In its first 22 issues, ACS Central Science published more than 150 research articles, each highlighted on the web for a few days with a custom banner image. The journal has accepted submissions from scores of leading scientific authors, including four Nobel laureates. To date, the journal has published more than 100 editorials, news stories, interviews and commentaries. As the first ACS publication with a dedicated mobile app, readers can quickly download whole issues for offline reading. It also produces sponsored explanatory videos and serves as a catalyst for reader engagement through social media.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With nearly 157,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. ACS does not conduct research, but publishes and publicizes peer-reviewed scientific studies. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.