Open access options

Authors can either publish through the traditional subscribed access route or make their paper open access through payment of an article-processing charge (APC).

The article publication charge is as follows:

  • $5,000   (The Americas)
  • €3,570   (Europe)
  • ¥637,350   (Japan)
  • £3,035   (UK and Rest of World)

Please note authors accepted for publication before April 2010 will receive a 20% discount on the APC.

Please access the Nature Communications OPEN FAQs (PDF format) for further information.

Open-access and subscribed-access manuscript processing

Open access and subscribed access papers look exactly the same to a reviewer. Reviewers will be blind to the author's choice, avoiding any possibility of a conflict of interest through peer review. In addition, authors won't be required to make a final decision about access to their article until acceptance.

Article Processing Charge Memberships

In addition, Article Processing Charge memberships for Nature Communications will also be available. Pricing and further information will be available from your regional sales office.

Self-archiving

Subscribed access papers follow NPG's self-archiving policy and License to Publish. All authors of original research papers published by NPG are encouraged to submit the author's version of the accepted, peer-reviewed manuscript to their relevant funding body's archive for release six months after publication. In addition, authors are also encouraged to archive their version of the manuscript in their institution's repositories (as well as on their personal web sites), also six months after the original publication.

In many cases, Nature Communications authors can choose to have NPG self-archive on their behalf, through its Manuscript Deposition Service.

Creative Commons and License to Publish

Open-access articles will be published under a Creative Commons license. Authors may choose between the Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported and the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licenses. The Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license permits derivative works, ensuring that authors can comply with funders such as the Wellcome Trust.

Other articles will continue to be published under NPG's exclusive License to Publish, and its usual self-archiving policy will apply.