How to publish open access

Publishing gold open access means that your final article (version of record) is freely and permanently available online for everyone to read and cite.

How do I choose this option for my article?

If you are submitting to a journal from our gold open access portfolio, you will have to choose this route to publication. However, you can also publish gold open access in any of our hybrid journals. This option is available once your manuscript has been accepted for publication, and a member of our editorial team will assist you.

What is the submission process?

Our submission system remains as easy and stress-free as usual. And the same applies to peer review – our quality standards are identical.

However, if your manuscript is accepted for publication, you will need to choose an open access licence and, in some cases, pay an article processing charge. Many of the journals in our gold open access portfolio are currently waiving APCs (see our APC breakdown table for the details). As always, our editorial teams can help you with any submission queries.

Learn more about:

• article processing charges (APCs)
• waivers and discounts
• licences
• copyright

Discover our gold open access portfolio and our hybrid journals.

Diamond open access is exactly like gold open access, but we cover the article processing charges. This option is available in our flagship journal, Chemical Science. Like gold open access, the final published article (version of record) is made freely and permanently available online.  

How do I choose this option for my article?

Publishing diamond open access is only available in Chemical Science. If your manuscript is accepted for publication, our editorial team will prompt you to select a licence.

Is the submission process any different?

The submission process and fair peer review remain the same as publishing in any of our journals. Our easy-to-use submission system means it’s possible for you to submit your manuscript in less than 20 minutes.

Learn more about:

• licences
• copyright

Discover ChemSci

Hybrid journals

You can choose to publish open access in any of our journals. We have a dedicated portfolio of gold open access journals which only publish in this way. All of our other titles are known as hybrid journals because:

1. you can choose to publish your work open access
2. or you can choose to publish your work for subscription-only audiences

Discover hybrid journals

Transformative journals

All fully RSC-owned hybrid journals are Transformative Journals, and compliant under Plan S, from November 2022. The inclusion of our journals in the Transformative Journals programme is the important first step in our aim for our journals to be fully open access within five years.

→ Find out more about Transformative journals on the Coaltion S website

We are committed to offset subscription income from payments for publishing services, and thereby avoid ‘double dipping’.

→ Please see our double-dipping policy for further information

Our transformative journals have targets to support their growth of open access content, which are aligned with the cOAlition S targets for Transformative Journals. These growth targets are those that result in the higher percentage of OA, namely a 5% absolute growth. Any journals that reach 75% open access content will be converted to a fully open access journal.

→ View RSC Transformative Journal targets

Read & Publish

A stepping stone to open access

This recognised agreement allows you to publish gold open access in any of our hybrid journals, if your institution has signed up. It also gives you complete access to our journal library. See who has signed up to Read & Publish.

Find out more

ChemRxiv™

Share your work before it’s published

ChemRxiv™ is the free submission, distribution and archive service for unpublished preprints in chemistry and related areas. It’s driven by the chemical science community and serves as a platform to share and discover the latest findings.

ChemRxiv™ is co-owned by the American Chemical Society (ACS), German Chemical Society (GDCh), and the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Visit ChemRxiv™

Green open access

At the Royal Society of Chemistry, publishing green open access means that your peer reviewed, accepted manuscript may be made freely available via an institutional or discipline-specific repository after a twelve-month embargo period. However, your published work can still be shared and viewed within this period if a reader has a subscription.

What is an embargo period?

An embargo is a period of time when access to published content is temporarily restricted. If you choose to publish an article green open access, we require an embargo before you make your article freely accessible.

At the Royal Society of Chemistry, our standard licence requires an embargo period of twelve months.

During the embargo period:

• your article's version of record is published in one of our journals, where it is available to subscribers
• restrictions apply to how you may distribute other versions of your article

What happens after the embargo period?

Once the embargo period has passed, your article's version of record remains available to subscribers in the journal where it was published. You may freely distribute the accepted manuscript of your article through your personal website, not-for-profit repositories, and many scholarly communication networks.

How to share your research open access.

Visit our comparison table below to help you choose between diamond, gold and green options.

This table summarises the differences between diamond, gold and green open access at the Royal Society of Chemistry. The route you choose will affect how you can share your article.

Once your article has been accepted for publication, you will need to choose and sign a licence to publish. We offer industry-standard Creative Commons licensing for open access publication in all of our journals. These licences have more flexible terms for reuse and distribution of a work than a standard licence to publish, enabling our authors to fulfil funding body requirements.

We offer a choice of two Creative Commons licences. Authors may select the appropriate licence according to their funding body and research institute requirements or their personal choice.

CC BY licence

Allows other users to reuse, distribute, and build upon the work, even commercially, with full original author attribution.

Download CC-BY licence example form

CC BY-NC licence

Allows other users to reuse, distribute, and build upon the work, non-commercially, with full original author attribution.

Download CC-BY-NC licence example form

You (or your employer) retain the copyright to your article whether you are publishing open access or not. If someone wanted to reuse your work, they would need to acknowledge you fully and accurately.