Open access

Three AGU journal covers on a dark starry background

OPEN ACCESS AND
FREE ACCESS PUBLISHING

What is open access?

Open access refers to published materials (such as journal articles, letter commentaries, data sets, etc.) which are completely free for the reader to access. The cost of publication is borne by the authors or their funders through a publication fee rather than the readers or their institutions through either a subscription or pay-to-view charges. This business model, first used by the Public Library of Science (PLOS) journals, was the spark for a larger movement toward greater access to and transparency in scientific research.

We have 100,000 open access articles and our content is continuously expanding.

Open access and free access options in AGU publications

AGU has five fully open access journals, and all our other journals give authors the option to make their papers freely available upon publication by paying an article processing charge. Creative Commons licenses are used for all open-access papers, and traditional copyright agreements are used for all other papers.

Gold open access

AGU has five fully open-access journals where authors must pay an article processing charge for their published articles. These are AGU Advances, the Earth’s Future, Earth and Space Science, GeoHealth, and Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems. With publication, authors can select one of several Creative Commons (CC) licenses. Articles published in these journals are freely available online immediately upon publication.

Hybrid open access

Hybrid open access is an option for all our other journals. Authors typically do not pay an article processing charge to be published in the journal. If an author wants an article to be available free of charge to all readers they will need to pay an article processing charge. Authors can select this option after their article is accepted. As with gold open access, authors select one of several Creative Commons (CC) licenses. For those who choose this option, their article is freely available online immediately upon publication. With hybrid open-access journals, readers will find some articles available via open access while others will be behind a paywall unless their institution has a subscription.

Commentaries, Comments, Replies, Frontiers Articles

These types of manuscripts are free to read no matter what license type they are under (or which AGU journal they are published in. Authors of these articles have no obligation to sign an open-access license unless required to do so by their funder or institution policy. Standard article processing charges for open-access licenses will apply.

Rolling free access

AGU has opened its digital archive. All journal articles published from 1997 to 24 months ago are now freely available without a subscription. Currently newly published content becomes free 24 months after the issue date. This continuously expanding content represents nearly 100,000 articles.

Eos archive

AGU’s Eos, our home for the latest news and trends in Earth and space science, is also freely available online. Archived Eos content from print issues from 1997 to 2014 is now completely free for AGU members to access via the Wiley Online Library.

Research 4 Life

AGU is part of Research 4 Life, which enables more than 8,500 institutions in low- or middle-income countries to gain free or low-cost access to AGU publications.

Free public access in UK

AGU is part of the innovative Access to Research initiative, which provides free access to content to patrons of public libraries in the UK.

Discounts and waivers for open access

Many funders and institutions now completely cover or take advantage of discounts on open-access author publishing charges in AGU journals through our publishing partner Wiley. These instances may apply to any author while others apply only for the corresponding author of the paper. Find out if your institution has an account.

Through Wiley, we offer discounts and waivers on fees for authors under certain circumstances or from certain countries.