New UC agreement for open access publishing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

The University of California yesterday (Aug. 3) announced an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences that allows UC corresponding authors to publish open access in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) for a reduced cost and with no separate article page charges.

The two-year agreement is effective as of August 1, 2021, and covers articles accepted on or after that date.

Benefits for UC authors include:

• Reduced costs for open access publishing: The total cost for UC authors to publish open access under the agreement is $3,000 per article, which represents a savings for authors compared with PNAS’ usual payment structure of page charges plus an open access publishing fee.
• Predictable costs: UC authors who publish open access will pay a single reduced fee, which is not based on the length of the article, with no separate page charges.
• Articles are open access by default, though authors may opt out if they wish.

Researchers and students at all UC campuses will also be able to access all PNAS content, dating back to 1915, free of charge.

This is the first transformative agreement between PNAS and a U.S. research institution, and UC’s tenth open access publishing agreement.

To learn more about the agreement and what it means for you, visit the UC Office of Scholarly Communication’s webpage or contact the UC Davis Library’s Scholarly Communications Officer Michael Ladisch (mladisch@ucdavis.edu) with any questions.