AGU is committed to inclusive and equitable scientific publishing. All accepted papers will be published regardless of the author’s ability to pay publication fees. Depending on the journal, there are 3 types of fees that might be associated with the publication of your paper: Base Publication Fee, Excess Page Fee (for overlength articles), or Open Access Article Processing Charge (OA APC). Details on these fees are provided below. If you need any assistance, please contact [email protected].

To ensure availability of funding is not a barrier to publication, AGU provides various funding options for our authors, including waivers. The options are detailed in Funding Options below. The funding options vary depending on the type of journal you choose: hybrid subscription journals (authors are not required to publish as Open Access) or fully gold Open-Access journals (all articles are published as Open Access).

Base Publication Fees are flat fees for papers up to a certain amount of publication units (PU) and are submitted to AGU’s hybrid subscription journals. Overlength papers incur Excess Page Fees (see section below).

The formula for PU = number of words/500 + number of figures + number of tables. Articles exceeding a certain amount of PUs incur excess page fees.

Word count includes abstract, acknowledgements, text (and in-text citations), figure captions, table captions, and appendices. Equations count as one word no matter the size. Equations are not copyedited.

Word count excludes title, author list and affiliations, key words, key points, plain language summary, table text, open research section, references, and supporting information. Supporting information is not copyedited.

Base publication fees and excess page fees are waived for authors publishing their articles as Open Access. Commentaries, Introductions, Viewpoints, Comments, and Replies are free to publish.

Longer papers are permitted in all journals except Geophysical Research Letters (GRL).

Overlength papers incur excess page fees in addition to the base publication fee due to increased editorial and production costs.

Excess Page Fees apply for papers with more than 25 PUs with the exception of review articles which incur excess page fees after 30 PUs.

As a part of our mission, AGU is focused on making science available to the widest possible audience. Open Access removes subscription paywalls, which means that more people will have access to your research so they can actively cite, read, and share data with the least possible restrictions. Authors (or their institutions or funders) pay an Open Access Article Processing Charge (APC) and retain copyright of their article which they can publish under a Creative Commons license (choosing among CC-BY, CC-BY-NC, CC-BY-ND, or CC-BY-NC-ND).

For authors choosing to publish as Open Access, there are no base publication fees or excess page fees. The APCs for AGU journals are listed in the tables below.

See tables below for Base Publication Fees, Excess Page Fees, and Open Access Article Processing Charges (APCs). For funding options and waivers, see Funding Options below.

AGU Hybrid Subscription Journals

*Base Publication and Excess Page Fees are waived for authors publishing their articles as Open Access. Information on taxes and licensing can be found on the Wiley website linked on the individual APCs above.

AGU Fully Gold Open Access Journals

There are no Base Publication Fee or Excess Page Fees for publishing in AGU’s fully gold Open Access journals.

*Information on taxes and licensing can be found on the Wiley website linked on the individual APCs above.

There are various funding options to help AGU authors cover their publication fees, depending on the type of AGU journal (hybrid subscription journal or fully gold open-access journal). These options are detailed below. If you need any assistance, please contact [email protected].

• Hybrid Subscription Journals: Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Journal of Geophysical Research (all except JGR: Machine Learning and Computation), Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, Radio Science, Reviews of Geophysics, and Tectonics.
• Fully Gold Open-Access Journals: AGU Advances, Community Science, Earth and Space Science, Earth’s Future, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, GeoHealth, Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), JGR: Machine Learning and Computation, Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Perspectives of Earth and Space Scientists, Space Weather, and Water Resources Research.

Applicable to: Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Journal of Geophysical Research (all except JGR: Machine Learning and Computation), Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, Radio Science, Reviews of Geophysics, and Tectonics.

For AGU’s Hybrid Journals, readers will find some articles available via Open Access while others behind a paywall unless their institution has a subscription. Authors publishing in these journals have two options:

• Publishing their paper as a regular paper (article is only accessible via subscription or purchase) and incurring base publication and/or excess page fees
• Publishing as an Open Access paper and incurring an Open Access Publishing Charge (OA APC). Base publication fees and excess page fees are waived for authors publishing as Open Access. Authors can choose this option after their paper is accepted.

* There are no base publication and excess page fees for publishing in Reviews of Geophysics

Funding Option for regular papers (non-Open Access) in Hybrid Journals:

If a Corresponding Author (or Co-Corresponding Author) of your paper is from one of the countries listed on Wiley’s lower- and middle-income country list, you may be eligible for an automatic 50% discount or full waiver on your base publication and/or excess page fees. Please use the list only as a reference to determine country eligibility, and disregard the messaging on the Wiley website about open access APCs. The waiver or discount will be applied after your manuscript is accepted.

If you are not able to pay the publication and/or excess page fees, you may request an AGU waiver. Please send your request in an email to the journal or in your cover letter, and our staff will assist you.

Funding Option for Open Access papers in Hybrid Journals:

Through arrangements with Wiley, our publishing partner, many institutions cover Open Access APC charges 100% or offer discounts. If a Corresponding Author of your paper is from an institution that has funding agreement with Wiley, your APC charges may be covered. You can see the current list of participating institutions on this Wiley Open Access Accounts page.

Please note that the description of the funding agreement must specify “Hybrid Journals” for you to be eligible for coverage, as some agreements only provide coverage for Fully Gold Open Access journals. If you are unsure, you can ask your institution or check your eligibility here.

There are no AGU waivers for Open Access APCs in AGU’s hybrid journals. Authors who may not have funding for Open Access APC can still have their paper published in the journal by publishing as a regular paper (non-Open Access), or consider publishing in AGU’s Gold Open Access journals where more funding options might be available.

Please note that as part of AGU’s commitment to Open Science, subscription papers in our hybrid journals are opened after 24 months and authors can share the Version of Record (final PDF) after 6 months of publication. As part of our Preprint Policy, AGU also encourages authors to post draft manuscripts (prior to peer review or accepted versions) on Earth and Space Science Open Archive or another preprint server.

Applicable to: AGU Advances, Community Science, Earth and Space Science, Earth’s Future, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, GeoHealth, Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), JGR: Machine Learning and Computation, Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Perspectives of Earth and Space Scientists, Space Weather, and Water Resources Research.

Publishing in AGU’s fully Gold Open-Access journal requires payment of an Open Access Article Processing Charge (APC). There are no base publication fees or excess page fees for these journals.

There are 4 Open Access APC funding options that may be available to authors:

1. Institutional/funder APC coverage (through arrangements with Wiley, our publishing partner)
2. Automatic full APC waivers or 50% discount for authors based in a low-and middle-income country (LMIC), through Research4Life
3. Corresponding author(s) pay the APC
4. AGU 50% discount or full waiver

To help ensure that funding is not a barrier to publication, AGU is pleased to offer discounts and waivers for authors. Before requesting a waiver, please check that you are not eligible for the other 3 funding options. This ensures that AGU Waiver Fund remains available to those who need it most.

Please be aware: most funding eligibility criteria for Option 1 (institutional/funder coverage and Research4Life coverage are based on the Corresponding Author’s (or co-Corresponding Authors’) named institution or institutional location. To benefit from the APC coverage, you will need to designate the eligible author as the Responsible Corresponding Author (RCA). You will be asked to make this designation in Wiley’s Author Services system after your paper is accepted. The RCA will appear in the final published paper as a Co-Corresponding Author.

Instructions for Selecting APC Funding Option

Please follow the guidance below when submitting your manuscript in GEMS (AGU’s electronic submission system) and completing the Financial Information section:

Option 1: Institutional or Funder APC Coverage - (Wiley Open Access Accounts)
If your institution or funder has a Wiley Open Access Account (WOAA), all or part of the APC might be covered. Eligibility is based on the manuscript's submission date and on the organization having an active WOAA/partnership arrangement when the article is ready to be published. For institutional WOAAs, the manuscript will be automatically sent to the corresponding author's listed institution's Open Access dashboard for APC funding approval. Please ensure that the correct author is listed as the corresponding author and that their institutional affiliation is correct in the submission system. For funder WOAAs, please obtain your funder's Account Code from the Wiley website. You will be asked to enter this code in GEMS.

Option 2: Low-and Middle-Income Countries Waivers and Discounts
A discount or waiver will automatically be given to corresponding authors from institutions in countries and locations on the Wiley Open Access Waivers and Discounts List.

Option 3: Corresponding Author pays the APC
If you are not covered by Option 1 or 2, you will be asked to pay the APC upon manuscript acceptance by credit card, invoice, or pro forma. If you are unable to pay the APC by other means, you can request support via Option 4 (AGU discount or waiver).

Option 4: AGU Waiver
If you are not covered by an institutional or funder WOAA or the automatic Wiley Open Access Waivers and Discounts, or unable to pay the APC for other reasons, you can request a discount (50%) or full waiver (100%) from AGU. Please ensure that you are not eligible for the other options prior to requesting this waiver. This is to ensure that the AGU waiver fund remains available to authors who need it most.

If you choose this option, select the “I request a waiver of the article publication charge” option in GEMS. Please specify whether you need a 50% discount or a full waiver and provide a brief explanation in the text box.

If you are unsure about your funding options and in need of assistance, or have any other questions, please email [email protected].