Fees and Licenses

Information on PNAS publication fees and types of publication licenses available can be found on this page.

Publication Fees

PNAS depends, in part, on the payment of publication fees to finance its operations. Papers are accepted or rejected for publication and published solely on the basis of merit. Articles that publish in volume 117 will receive the 2020 publication and open access fees. For articles that publish in volume 118, authors will be assessed the following fees:

Regular research articles: $1,380 per article up to 6 pages, with no additional fees for color figures or SI. Any fraction of a page over 6 and up to 9 will cost an additional $375 per page, and any fraction of a page over 9 and up to 12 will cost an additional $500 per page. Articles longer than 12 pages are not permitted.

Article Pages	Page Charge (USD)
Up to 6 pages	$1,380
7 pages	$1,755
8 pages	$2,130
9 pages	$2,505
10 pages	$3,005
11 pages	$3,505
12 pages	$4,005

Brief Report articles: $2,200 per article, with no additional fees for color figures, SI, or open access. All Brief Report articles are published open access.

Open access: Authors of research articles may pay a surcharge to make their article freely available through the open access option.

All articles are free within 6 months of publication. Corresponding authors from institutions with current-year site licenses will be assessed a discounted open access fee of $2,000 (compared to our regular fee of $2,500) for a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license. The Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license is available for authors whose funders or institutions require it, for a fee of $2,200.

Publication charges may be paid by credit card, check, or wire transfer. On receipt of the publication estimate, authors may log into the author billing system to review their charges. For questions regarding billing and payment of fees, email PNASsupport@copyright.com. Requests for waivers of charges should be submitted to PNASaubilling@nas.edu.

Licenses for PNAS Articles

PNAS articles are published under a variety of license terms.

This page explains which licenses govern the use of PNAS content. Users are advised to check each article for its publication license and corresponding distribution policies.

Default License for PNAS Articles

Except for open access articles submitted from September 2017 to present, authors retain copyright but grant to PNAS an exclusive License to Publish. Authors and their employing institution or company retain extensive rights for use of their materials after publication in PNAS and for intellectual property. These rights are retained without requiring explicit permission from PNAS, provided the full journal reference is cited and, for articles published in 90–105 (1993–2008), “Copyright (copyright year) National Academy of Sciences.” Users may view, reproduce, or store journal content, provided that the information is only for their personal, noncommercial use.

Anyone may, without requesting permission, use original figures or tables from PNAS articles that published under the exclusive License to Publish for noncommercial and educational use (i.e., in a review article, in a book that is not for sale), provided that the full journal reference is cited and, for articles published in volumes 90–105 (1993–2008), "Copyright (copyright year) National Academy of Sciences." Commercial reuse of figures and tables (i.e., in promotional materials, in a textbook for sale) requires permission from PNAS.

Authors retain the following rights under the PNAS default license:

• The right to post the manuscript on preprint servers such as arXiv or bioRxiv, as long as authors retain distribution rights to the work, that PNAS-formatted files (HTML and PDF) are not used, and that a link to the article in PNAS is included.
• The right to archive a postprint (accepted manuscript) on personal web pages.
• The right to archive a postprint (accepted manuscript) in their funding body’s archive or designated noncommercial institutional repository upon publication in PNAS, provided that a link to the article in PNAS is included, and the right to request public access 6 months after publication (unless the PNAS open access option was chosen).
• The right to post the PNAS-formatted PDF of their article on their personal website 6 months after publication, or immediately on publication if the PNAS open access option was chosen. A link to the article in PNAS must be included.
• The right to make electronic or hard copies of articles for their personal use, including classroom use, or for the personal use of colleagues, provided those copies are not for sale and are not distributed in a systematic way outside of their employing institution.
• Authors must retain copyright of the work. The PNAS News Office asks that authors refrain from posting accepted manuscripts on publicly accessible preprint servers until after the media embargo has expired.
• The right to use all or part of their article in a compilation of their own works, such as collected writings or lecture notes.
• If the article is a "work for hire" made within the scope of the author’s employment, the employer may use all or part of the information in the article for intracompany use.
• The right to include the article in the author’s thesis or dissertation.
• The right to publish a new or extended version of the article provided that it is sufficiently different to be considered a new work.
• The right to expand the article into book-length form for publication.
• The right to permit others to use the original figures or tables published in PNAS for noncommercial and educational use (i.e., in a review article, in a book that is not for sale), provided that the full journal reference is cited and, for articles published in volumes 90–105 (1993–2008), "Copyright (copyright year) National Academy of Sciences."
• The right to reuse the original figures and tables in future works.
• Patent and trademark rights or rights to any process or procedure described in the article.
• The right to present all or part of the paper at a meeting or conference, including ones that are webcast, and to give copies of the paper to meeting attendees before or after publication in PNAS. For interactions with the media prior to publication, see the PNAS Embargo Policy.

For other uses by authors, please contact PNASpermissions@nas.edu.

Creative Commons License for Open Access Articles

Beginning with papers submitted in September 2017, open access articles are published under a nonexclusive License to Publish and distributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Prior to September 2017, open access articles were published under the default license (exclusive License to Publish). PNAS also offers a CC BY 4.0 license option to authors whose funders or institutions require it. Terms of reuse and distribution are license dependent. Authors are invited to review the terms detailed by following the Creative Commons license links above.

Some funders and institutions have explicit open access and license requirements that may conflict with the PNAS standard license. Authors are advised to confirm these requirements with their funding or institutional representatives to ensure compliance or to request policy waivers. Changes to license selections, or open access status, after publication may not be possible.

All PNAS articles are free online within 6 months of publication. Authors who choose the open access option will have their articles made available without cost to the reader immediately upon publication. All content, regardless of funding, is automatically deposited by PNAS in PubMed Central and made free within 6 months of publication. PNAS participates in CHORUS.

Authors may deposit their accepted manuscript in their funding body’s archive or designated noncommercial institutional repository, under the same license as the published article, provided that a link to the article in PNAS is included. Authors may request public access immediately if the PNAS open access option was chosen.

More information about the PNAS open access option is available here.

Authors Rights and Permissions

Rights and Permissions

For volumes 1–89 (1915–1992), the author(s) retains copyright to individual articles, and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) holds copyright to the collective work. 

For volumes 90–105 (1993–2008), the articles are copyright NAS. 

For volumes 106–present (2009–present), except for open access articles submitted beginning September 2017, the author(s) retains copyright to individual articles, and NAS retains an exclusive License to Publish these articles and holds copyright to the collective work. 

For open access articles submitted beginning September 2017, the NAS retains a nonexclusive License to Publish, and these articles are distributed under either a CC BY-NC-ND or CC BY license.

Please visit the Permissions FAQ for detailed information about PNAS copyright and self- archiving guidelines. The PNAS listing on the Sherpa RoMEO publisher policies pages can be found here.

PNAS authors need not obtain permission for the following cases:

1. to use their original figures or tables in their future works;
2. to make copies of their articles for their own personal use, including classroom use, or for the personal use of colleagues, provided those copies are not for sale and are not distributed in a systematic way;
3. to include their articles as part of their dissertations; or
4. to use all or part of their articles in printed compilations of their own works.

The full journal reference must be cited and, for articles published in volumes 90–105 (1993–2008), "Copyright (copyright year) National Academy of Sciences" must be included as a copyright note.

The PNAS listing on the Sherpa RoMEO publisher policies pages can be found here.

Requesting Permission

For permission to reuse material in volumes 90–present (1993–present) that published under the exclusive PNAS License to Publish, requests should be sent to PNASpermissions@nas.edu  and must include the following information about the requestor and the material:

1. Your full name, affiliation, and title
2. Your complete mailing address, phone number, and email
3. PNAS volume number, issue number, and issue date
4. PNAS article title
5. PNAS authors’ names
6. Figure/table number or portion of text to be reprinted

Requests must also include the following information about the intended use of the material:

1. Title of work in which PNAS material will appear
2. Authors/editors of work
3. Publisher of work
4. Retail price of work
5. Number of copies of work to be produced
6. Intended audience
7. Whether work is for nonprofit or commercial use

Permission is not required to use original figures or tables for noncommercial and educational use (i.e., in a review article, in a book that is not for sale) if the article published under the exclusive PNAS License to Publish. Please include a full journal reference and, for articles published in volumes 90–105 (1993–2008), include "Copyright (copyright year) National Academy of Sciences" as a copyright note. Commercial reuse of figures and tables (i.e., in promotional materials, in a textbook for sale) requires permission from PNAS.

Reproducing full articles (whether physically or electronically) published under the exclusive PNAS License to Publish requires permission from PNAS and will also incur an article reprint fee. Sharing the URL of a PNAS article does not require permission and will not incur any fees.

In September 2017 (partway through volume 114), PNAS started offering CC BY-NC-ND and CC BY licenses for open access articles. PNAS is not authorized to grant permission for material published under either license, as the authors hold copyright. However, depending on the intended use, permission may not be required at all. Users are advised to check each article for its publication license and corresponding reuse and distribution policies.

As a courtesy, please notify PNAS authors when reusing their work, regardless of the License to Publish. Use of PNAS material must not imply any endorsement by PNAS or NAS.

Text and data mining are permitted for noncommercial institutions with an active institutional site license to PNAS for internal noncommercial research purposes. Other requests should be sent to PNASpermissions@nas.edu.

PNAS cannot supply original artwork. Such requests should be directed to the article’s corresponding author (contact information available in the article’s footnotes).

Additional Permissions Requests

Copyright Clearance Center offers the following pay-per-use options for PNAS material:

• Use in electronic or print course materials (i.e., coursepacks, classroom handouts, posting on an academic institution intranet)
• Delivery via Interlibrary Loan (ILL) or other document delivery
• Photocopying for general business or academic use
• Sharing content electronically (i.e., sending in an email, posting on an intranet or extranet)

Pay-per-use orders can be submitted directly through the Copyright Clearance Center website.

Authorization to photocopy items for the internal or personal use of specific clients is granted by the NAS provided that the proper fee is paid directly to the Copyright Clearance Center.

For questions regarding any of the above, including permission to photocopy beyond that permitted by Section 107 or 108 of the US Copyright Law, contact:

Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive Danvers, MA 01923 Phone: 978-750-8400 Fax: 978-750-4770 Email: info@copyright.com