The California State University (CSU) system is participating in a four-year Transformative Agreement with the American Chemical Society (ACS) as part of the University of Californa's license as negotiated with the UCs and the CSU Chancellor's Office. This Transformative Agreement ends on December 31, 2025.
The Transformative Agreement with ACS allows corresponding authors affiliated with the CSU to publish open access in eligible ACS journals at a significantly discounted price with the possibility of article processing charges to be paid by your funder or the institution.
In addition to open access publication benefits, participants in this special agreement will have full-text access to all current ACS Publications journal content as paid for by the University Library.
View the CSU and ACS Information Page.
View the Publishing Open Access with ACS Publications Agreement.
To take advantage of the January 1, 2022-December 31, 2025 agreement:
Yes, all corresponding authors affiliated with the CSU are eligible, including faculty, students, staff, etc.
No, ACS will not know. The funding request is not automatic. At manuscript submission, the corresponding author must identify themselves as affiliated with Cal Poly Pomona, then select the option to publish open access at the Journal Publishing Agreement page. More details about manuscript submission is available at the Publishing Open Access with ACS Publications Agreement.
No, this agreement only covers the following types of peer-reviewed works: case reports; data; full length articles; microarticles; original software publications; practice guidelines; protocols; review articles; replication studies; short communications; short surveys; video articles. It does not cover editorials or other types of publications that are not subject to peer review.
The CSU OA agreement overrides the PUI status of a CSU including CPP. At this time, none of the CSUs are considered PUIs by ACS. Faculty who would like to publish open access in an ACS journal should follow steps outlined in the Publishing Open Access with ACS Publications Agreement and within that process, will see if most or all of the article processing charge (APC) is covered for that particular journal.
The Publishing Open Access with ACS Publications Agreement contains step-by-step instructions on submitting a manuscript to an eligible ACS journal.
The table below from the ACS Information Page shows the ACS journals where your article publishing charge (APC) should be covered by your institution. Unless otherwise stated, this agreement covers 100% of the APC.
| Journal / Collection | Included in Agreement? | |
|---|---|---|
 |
ACS Central Science | Diamond open access: Free to publish and read |
 |
ACS Omega |  APC may be covered, or a discounted rate may be available |
 |
ACS Au family (including JACS Au) | APC may be covered, or a discounted rate may be available |
      |
Artificial Photosynthesis Chem & Bio Engineering Chemical & Biomedical Imaging Environment & Health Polymer Science & Technology Precision Chemistry |
Waivers available: see individual journals for information |
| ACS hybrid / transformative journals | APC may be covered, or a discounted rate may be available |
|