The agreement enables authors across the UC system to publish with immediate open access in PNAS for a reduced cost, as a result of subsidy from the UC libraries. The UC agreement with NAS also provides reading access to PNAS for all UC campuses and Lawrence Berkeley and Livermore National Laboratories.   

When publishing open access, the total negotiated cost to authors will be $3,225 per article, which represents savings of more than $2,000 compared with PNAS’s typical combined article processing charge (APC) for immediate open access publishing.

Yes, if you are (1) a UC affiliate (faculty, lecturer, staff, graduate student) at one of UC’s campuses, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, or the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, (2) you are the article’s corresponding author, and (3) you choose to publish your article as immediate open access in PNAS. 

If you want to publish your article open access in PNAS, UC has negotiated an agreement that will make it more cost effective for you to do so. If you want to publish in PNAS but do not want your article to be immediately available as open access, you can still publish your article and pay PNAS’ standard APC.

Only corresponding authors are covered by the publishing aspects of this agreement, and will make the determination about electing open access. 

All UC faculty, lecturers, staff, and students will continue to have reading access to all of PNAS.

For PNAS, a single corresponding author is responsible for providing all necessary manuscript information and interactions with the editorial office throughout submission and peer review (see PNAS Editorial and Journal Policies.) 

• After acceptance, multiple corresponding authors, who are responsible for checking the accuracy of the proof contents and who will act as points of contact for queries about the published article, are permissible; these authors should be indicated on the title page.

All regular research articles in PNAS are covered by this agreement, if the corresponding author elects open access. The flat rate will also cover the publication of supplemental information (SI). There is no separate charge for articles that have associated SI files.

The agreement will apply to articles accepted beginning August 1, 2021.

Brief Report articles are not affected because the fee is $2,200, which includes Open Access and a CC BY license with publication.

The way the process works for authors who wish to publish open access with financial support from UC libraries:

• At the submission stage, PNAS will instruct submitting authors to review available open access publishing agreements and will specify how to obtain the discounted APC.
• At the time of acceptance, the corresponding author will have the option to publish open access under the UC agreement, with the Creative Commons license of their choice.
• After acceptance, PNAS will notify the corresponding author by email to confirm that the the reduced APC will be applied to the article.
• After publication, PNAS will send the invoice for the reduced APC to the corresponding author.

This agreement is designed to advance open access to UC research. As with UC’s other transformative open access agreements, the UC libraries’ existing journals budget is being repurposed to make it more affordable for authors to publish open access.   

The agreement was structured to manage UC’s costs while enabling open access publication, and authors are encouraged to elect open access without concern for any added burden on UC or UC libraries’ finances.  

• Yes. Where and how you publish is your decision. The agreement with NAS does not mandate immediate open access publishing, nor does it dictate your journal selection. Rather, it makes the open access publishing option for PNAS more affordable, predictable, and the workflow simpler.
• Authors who opt out of the agreement will be charged PNAS’ standard publication charges, with the article available only to PNAS subscribers until six months after publication.

More information is available via:

• National Academy of Sciences’ press release
• Announcement of National Academy of Sciences agreement
• Memorandum of Understanding

Or from your campus library:

• UC Berkeley 
• UC Davis
• UC Irvine 
• UCLA 
• UC Merced 
• UC Riverside 
• UC San Diego 
• UC San Francisco
• UC Santa Barbara 
• UC Santa Cruz