April 18, 2023|Jonathon Foreman
04-18 open access buttons

[Image above] Credit: h_pampel, Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)


The global push for immediate free access to peer-reviewed articles received a major boost last summer from the U.S. White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

In a memo authored by previous OSTP deputy director Alondra Nelson (the “Nelson” memo), OSTP called upon U.S. funding agencies to create policies to provide immediate free access to articles resulting from federally funded research, in contrast to the current 12-month embargo period. This policy statement is similar to ones previously issued by cOAlition S, Jisc, and other organizations that advocate for open access.

“Gold” open-access publishing is currently the only viable method for complying with this mandate. In gold OA publishing, authors cover the costs of publication through an article processing charge, and the journal publishes a freely accessible final version on their website.

Publishing an article under gold OA licensing has many advantages, including

  • The research has greater reach because it can be read by anyone with an internet connection;
  • OA articles receive more citations than those behind paywalls; and
  • Authors retain copyright and the ability to freely use their work without limitation.

Learn more about gold OA licensing on Wiley’s Author Services page.

For authors, the new experience of having to pay fees to publish can be a barrier to sharing their research with the world. We understand that change is difficult, especially when it may affect your ability to perform experiments or mentor the next generation of researchers.

Fortunately, if you work at an institution with a transformational agreement with Wiley, you can easily publish your ACerS journal article with little to no impact on your research budget.

In transformational agreements, institutions (individually or through a consortium) set up accounts with Wiley to manage and pay article processing charges. In return, the communities for those institutions receive access to all or part of the Wiley Online Library journal portfolio.

With the access and compliance issues in mind, the number of institutions entering Wiley Transformational Agreements is expanding rapidly.

For the researcher, these agreements make it easy to publish gold OA. Researchers can determine if their institution has an agreement with Wiley by checking Wiley’s list of open-access accounts.

Below are steps detailing how you can take advantage of these agreements to publish in ACerS journals.

  1. If your article is being submitted to International Journal of Ceramic Engineering & Science, the submitting author enters the code for the institution during the initial submission because all of this journal’s articles are gold OA.
  2. If your article is being submitted to ACerS other three journals, the corresponding author chooses open-access publishing during the licensing phase after acceptance. The institution code is entered at that time. 
  3. Wiley bills the institution/consortium directly for the article processing charge, not the authors.

Additional resources for information about the open-access publishing process include

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