Over 70% of U.S.-based ACS authors are now covered by institutional open access agreements that ensure they can make their manuscripts freely accessible, as required by U.S. federal funders. For those who are not covered, we offer a variety of options and cost points. Find out if you’re covered by an agreement and review individual options.
As of 2026, updated public access mandates apply to all researchers who receive any form of federal funding from the U.S. government to support their research. These policies require that accepted manuscripts be made publicly available without embargo. Some policies affect new grants issued from their implementation date; others specify that they apply to articles accepted for publication after the implementation date, even if the grant was issued prior to the new policy coming into force. You should check your funder’s public access policy to confirm the details.
Non-compliance can affect future funding and grant renewals—so understanding your options is critical. However, ACS’ range of institutional open access agreements make complying with these updated policies easy for the majority of authors.
New federal funder policies affect all grantees
- All U.S. federal funding agencies have new public access policies in place.
- The National Institutes of Health’s public access policy was accelerated, requiring immediate public access to all articles accepted for publication from July 1, 2025.
- The National Science Foundation’s policy applies to all new grants awarded from January 2025 onwards.
- The US Department of Energy’s policy has been in effect since October 1, 2024 (with new data management & sharing requirements applying from October 1, 2025).
Open access agreements now cover over 70% of U.S.-based authors publishing with ACS
In an earlier post, we highlighted the growth of open access agreements in the U.S. Since then, ACS has entered into new agreements covering more than 200 institutions across the U.S., in addition to those already in place.
As of February 2026, these agreements cover over 70% of U.S.-based authors who publish with ACS, making it easy for them to meet federal funders' requirements for public access to accepted manuscripts .
There are two main ways in which ACS is working with institutions to support funders’ public access requirements.
Read and publish agreements provide authors with the chance to publish the final version of their article as open access at no cost to them, as well as depositing the accepted manuscript in a repository.
Read and green agreements facilitate immediate deposit of authors’ accepted manuscripts in funder repositories, with the final article requiring subscription access to read (and in many cases, authors are also entitled to significant discounts on open access publishing charges if they choose to make the final article open access).
Both types of agreement also provide full reading access to ACS journals.
Institutions with open access publishing support in ACS journals
New read and publish agreements include:
- 78 major institutions across Ohio
- Pennsylvania State University — joining 53 other members of the PALCI consortium
- Princeton University
- SCELC in California — 23 institutions
- SCELCTEX in Texas — 29 institutions
- Texas A&M University — 10 institutions
- UMECO Consortium — 5 institutions
- The University of Alabama at Birmingham
- The University of Alabama in Huntsville
- Universities of Wisconsin — 12 institutions
- Authors affiliated with the 100+ primarily undergraduate institutions participating in our sponsored read and publish program are also able to comply with applicable public access mandates at no cost to themselves, for the duration of their institution’s participation in the program.
Special agreements to support immediate public access to research
New read and green agreements include:
- Academic Libraries of Indiana consortium — 12 institutions
- Central Consortium UKNB — 6 institutions
- Columbia University
- Johns Hopkins University
- MINITEX Consortium — 7 institutions
- ORBIS Cascade Alliance — 7 institutions
- University System of Maryland — 6 institutions
- University of Texas System — 17 institutions
- Additional read and green agreements cover over 70 institutions in the U.S.
More agreements expected soon
- We’re continuing discussions with other institutions across the U.S. to cover as many of our authors as possible. If your school isn’t currently included in our list of active open access agreements, check with your librarian for updates.
- Even if your institution isn’t covered yet, you still have options to meet federal funder requirements when publishing with us.