ACS Publications commits its entire hybrid journal portfolio to become transformative journals

WASHINGTON, April 26, 2022 — The Publications Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) has committed its full portfolio of more than 60 hybrid journals, which offers both open access and subscription-only content, to become Plan S-aligned transformative journals. This development represents a major step in ACS’ long-standing commitment to open science, signaling a future in which all publications are open access (OA), and ensures that more authors can continue to publish in their chosen journal.

“The transformative journal designation is a further commitment to embrace open access across our publishing activities,” says Sybille Geisenheyner, director of open science strategy and licensing at ACS. “This is a sign of how far ACS has come as an open access publisher and a firm signal that we will continue to embrace open science as the future of scholarly communication.”

Plan S is the OA publishing strategy of cOAlition S, a group of research funders from around the globe. Researchers funded by a Plan S-aligned funder are required to publish their research OA under a copyright license allowing for liberal reuse and in a completely OA journal or, until the end of 2024, in a hybrid journal with transformative journal status. Transformative journals must achieve an absolute growth in open access articles of 5% per year, or a relative growth of 15% year-on-year (whichever is more challenging for the journal) to maintain this status.

ACS publishes 12 gold open access journals, which are all compliant with Plan S requirements. The commitment for the rest of its portfolio to become transformative journals will allow authors even greater flexibility in their choice of publication outlet.

“We are delighted to welcome the ACS to the growing list of publishers who are committing to transitioning their portfolio of journal titles to open access,” says Robert Kiley, head of strategy at cOAlition S. “In addition to the demanding OA growth targets, transformative journal titles have to demonstrate how subscription income is offset by the increase in the proportion of OA content.”

“We made the decision to pursue transformative journal status with researchers’ needs at the core of our thinking,” says James Milne, Ph.D., president, ACS Publications Division. “ACS is proud to publish the ‘most trusted, most cited, most read’ journals in chemistry, and we believe every researcher should be able to publish the results of their research in the journal of their choosing. Coupled with other open access initiatives, this development will help researchers during the transition toward open access.”