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Open access

The right to health, health equity, and social justice requires that the best evidence be shared as widely as possible to inform change. Open access is a central component of open science— making research freely available to readers, encouraging both scientific collaboration and discourse.

We offer open access options across all Lancet journals. Read on to learn more about: open access at The Lancet Group and explore the different options within our journals; understand our article processing charges (APCs) and additional support to help you publish open access; and our frequently asked questions around open access.

Our mission is to ensure that we publish the best science for better lives. Supporting our open access authors is an important step toward achieving this goal.

Learn more

Hybrid journals

The other journals in The Lancet Group, including The Lancet, are hybrid journals, which support open access. In these journals, we offer authors of research Articles with funding that requires open access publication, and with whom we have an agreement, either a gold open access or a subscription green open access solution for their submission. The specific funders we have arrangements with are listed below.

When you publish your paper with The Lancet Group, you are joining a community of experts dedicated to advancing health worldwide. Our authors benefit from our commitment to publishing excellence, which includes:

Publishing excellence: publish with a journal committed to editorial processes that meet our standards of excellence. Read our editorial policies.
Professional editorial leadership: collaborate with a multi-disciplinary global team of over 200 in-house full-time experts in scholarly publishing—from acceptance, to publishing and beyond. Follow the journey of a paper.
Peer review network: your manuscript will benefit from the vast network of expert peer reviewers. You will also be supported through the process by one of our professional, peer review Editors. Find out more about peer review.
Global reach: with more than 36·6 million annual online visits, over 3·9 million alert subscriptions, and 180 000 media mentions annually, make your work visible to a global network of researchers, clinicians, industry professionals, policy makers, media outlets, patients, and the wider public. Find out more about our reach and impact.
High impact: Lancet journals are internationally trusted sources of clinical, public health, and global health knowledge. We encourage authors to explore a variety of journal-based metrics to assess our journals. Explore our journal impact metrics.

Choosing where to publish your work is an important decision

“Authors who publish with The Lancet Group join a global community concerned with advancing the health and wellbeing of people worldwide. Throughout the review and publishing journey, our authors work in close partnership with our editors to meticulously check the paper and analyses, put their findings into context, and ultimately improve how clearly the message is communicated to achieve the impact each paper deserves”.

Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief, The Lancet and Senior Vice President, The Lancet Group

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To support the costs of publishing including reviewing (first by internal review, and then external peer review), technical, copy editing, typesetting and graphics, online hosting, archiving, and promotion, authors who choose to publish OA in our journals pay an APC, upon acceptance. Original research Articles are eligible for open access publishing in our hybrid journals if their research funder is eligible (see below).

The decision to accept or reject a paper at The Lancet Group is conducted by Lancet Editors, informed by peer review, and is not related to your ability to pay. Editors do not have access to payment information upon submission, and payments post-acceptance are handled by a separate department. We will always make it possible to publish accepted papers and offer support for discounts and waivers (see below).

Journal	APC (as of Jan 1, 2025)
The Lancet	USD 7,890
The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health	USD 6,680
The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology	USD 7,280
The Lancet Digital Health*	USD 6,680
The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology	USD 7,280
The Lancet Global Health*	USD 6,680
The Lancet Haematology	USD 7,280
The Lancet Healthy Longevity*	USD 6,680
The Lancet HIV	USD 7,280
The Lancet Infectious Diseases	USD 7,280
The Lancet Microbe*	USD 7,280
The Lancet Neurology	USD 7,280
The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology, & Women’s Health	USD 7,280
The Lancet Oncology	USD 7,280
The Lancet Planetary Health*	USD 6,680
The Lancet Primary Care*	USD 6,680
The Lancet Psychiatry	USD 7,280
The Lancet Public Health*	USD 6,680
The Lancet Respiratory Medicine	USD 7,280
The Lancet Rheumatology	USD 7,280
The Lancet Regional Health — Americas*	USD 4,930 (Canada & USA) USD 2,250 (Latin America & the Caribbean)
The Lancet Regional Health — Europe*	USD 4,930
The Lancet Regional Health — Western Pacific*	USD 4,250
The Lancet Regional Health — Southeast Asia*	USD 2,250
eBioMedicine part of The Lancet Discovery Science*	USD 5,780
eClinicalMedicine part of The Lancet Discovery Science*	USD 5,780

We believe ability to pay should never be a barrier to publication. There are several options available to you to support publishing with us regardless of your ability to pay in part or in full, which we’ve outlined below. We are here to support you.

Funding arrangements

We have agreements with funding bodies so authors can comply with funding body open access policies.

Open access publication in our hybrid journals is available for authors whose research is funded by the following research funders:

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Blood Cancer UK
Breast Cancer Now
British Heart Foundation
Cancer Research UK
Dunhill Medical Trust
European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP)
European Centre for Disease Control
European Research Council
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
Motor Neuron Disease Association
Parkinson’s UK
Telethon Italy
The Michael J. Fox Foundation
UK Chief Scientist Office
UK Department of Health and Social Care and the UK National Institute for Health Research
UK Department of International Development (DFID)
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
United Nations University
Versus Arthritis
Wellcome*
Worldwide Cancer Research
WHO (including International Agency for Research on Cancer [IARC] and Pan American Health Organization [PAHO])*

*If your funder no longer supports APCs in hybrid journals in accordance with Plan S, such as Wellcome and WHO, we offer the gold open access choice only. Please see waivers and discounts below if you have no means of funding the APC.

Open access agreements

Elsevier has reached several open access agreements to support open access publication with several international institutions and consortia. Lancet journals are included in some of these open access agreements. For more information, contact [email protected].

Regional pricing

The APCs for Lancet Regional Health titles have been adjusted to meet the needs of researchers in each region. We consider factors such as the availability and levels of research funding, the countries where the research was carried out, and the geographic locations of the researchers. For any further questions, please contact [email protected].

Research4Life discounts

Our collaboration with Research4Life supports access to and publication of medical research in the world’s most resource-poor countries. If all authors are from group A countries of the Health InterNetwork Access (HINARI), then the paper will be eligible for a full APC waiver. If all authors are from a HINARI group B country, or authors are from a mix of group A and B countries, then the paper will be eligible for a 50% fee waiver.

Learn more about Research4Life

Waivers and additional discounts

We are committed to publishing any paper accepted for publication in our journals and firmly believe that ability to pay must never be a barrier to publication. For authors who do not have institutional or funding body support for APCs, we will apply discounts and waivers. If you are unable to pay the full APC, please contact us once your paper is accepted and provide information on the funder(s) of your research, which routes you have explored to obtain funding for the APC, and how much you are able to pay.

International public health emergencies

The Lancet Group makes all content related to specific public health emergencies freely available on TheLancet.com to support researchers, healthcare professionals, policy makers, and the public. Recent examples include our COVID-19 and mpox Collections.

Geographical Pricing for Open Access (GPOA)

Three of our gold open access journals, The Lancet Global Health, eClinicalMedicine and eBioMedicine, are taking part in Elsevier's geographical pricing for open access pilot. By tailoring prices according to gross national income per capita, we are aiming to reduce financial barriers that have traditionally hindered researchers and institutions from low-, middle-, and upper middle-income countries from publishing in gold open access journals. The exact geo-pricing per article will be calculated based on the country of the corresponding author provided during submission. Geo-pricing will apply to papers submitted to or accepted in these journals from January 16, 2024.

For more information, including the GNI per capita banding, please read the GPOA pilot detailsOpens in new window.

Our open access policy

What is open access publishing?
Open access (OA) is a way of publishing scholarly content whereby articles are immediately accessible upon publication to readers, free of charge, with no or few restrictions regarding reuse, via a Creative Commons licence. Authors typically retain the copyright of their work. Costs for publication are covered by author publishing fees. For hybrid journals, the cost of publishing is supported by subscription fees.

For more information, please visit Elsevier's policies on open access licences Opens in new window
What is gold and green open access?
Papers published as gold open access are available immediately and freely for anyone to read. Our gold open access option provides publication under Creative Commons license, which enables authors to retain copyright while allowing others to copy, distribute, and make some use of their work, provided full credit is given to them as originators.

For more information, please visit Creative Commons licences list

For the green open access option, at 6 months after publication authors can deposit the final accepted version of their paper in any repository they choose, and the published paper will be made free to access on our websites.
Can all authors publish open access with The Lancet Group?
Any author can publish open access for all full-length, peer reviewed, papers in any of our gold open access titles, regardless of the funding body supporting their work. In our hybrid journals, which support open access, we have arrangements with specific funders (listed above) to enable authors of research Articles with funding that requires open access publication to publish with us.

Learn more about our different content types
Can I publish non-research content (eg, Reviews, Comments, etc) as open access?
All content in our fully open access journals, including Reviews and Comments, are gold open access licence, but the APC only applies to full-length Articles that are peer reviewed. Hybrid journals only publish open access research Articles, but do not publish Reviews and Comments under open access agreements.

Find out more about how our readers can access content in our hybrid journals.
What is the process for publishing open access with The Lancet Group?

When you submit your paper via Editorial Manager, our online submission portal, publishing options will give you more information on the licensing options and any associated APCs (excluding any waivers or additional discounts) for the article type you are submitting and the journal you are submitting to.
If my article was published without open access originally, can I make it open access later?

In general, open access options cannot be applied retrospectively, unless as part of the terms of your open access agreement.
Is all content related to international health emergencies open access?
The Lancet Group ensures all content related to specific public health emergencies is freely available on TheLancet.com to support researchers, healthcare professionals, policy makers and the public. For example, The Lancet Group was a signatory to the 2018 Wellcome statement on sharing research data and findings relevant to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in 2020 to the data sharing statement related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and created Collections for Ebola, Zika, COVID-19, and mpox.

Read the Elsevier policy on public health emergencies
Does The Lancet Group make other content free to read?
The Lancet Group makes select global health content free to access on TheLancet.com.

Find out how to access content in our journals.
Are Lancet journals indexed?
Ensuring that journal articles are included in the top indices greatly improves their discoverability and status. Lancet journals are indexed in major indices such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), PubMed/MEDLINE, the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NSLC/CAS) Journal Ranking, and Web of Science | Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI).

Find out more about our journals’ inclusion in specific indices on journal impact metrics.

Copyright and licences

When will I be able to choose my copyright licences?

After your paper is accepted for publication, an email will be sent directing you to our online author communication system (OACS). Through this platform, you will be able to complete the rights associated with your paper, choose the licences we offer, view and sign the relevant publishing agreement and pay for the APC for gold OA content.

What are the relevant copyright licences for gold and green open access options?

We offer our authors a choice between:

CC BY 4.0 Opens in new window (Creative Commons Attribution License)
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Opens in new window (Creative Commons Non-Commercial No-Derivatives License)
CC BY-NC 4.0 Opens in new window (Creative Commons Non-Commercial License)

Please note that articles with commercial funding only (e.g. from a drug or device manufacturing or other for-profit organisation) are required to use a CC BY-NC-ND Opens in new window licence. Authors with funding from another source (or no funding) can choose either CC-BY Opens in new window , CC BY-NC Opens in new window or CC BY-NC-ND Opens in new window . Please check with your funder whether a specific Creative Commons license is preferred.

User license	Read, print, and download	Redistribute or republish (eg, display in a repository)	Translate the article	Download for text and data mining	Reuse portions or extracts in other works	Sell or re-use for commercial purposes	Re-use for non-commercial purposes
CC BY 4.0	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0	Yes	Yes	Yes: for private use only, not for distribution	Yes: for private use only, not for distribution	Yes	No	No
CC BY-NC 4.0	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes

What copyright licences are available for WHO affiliated authors?

We offer authors affiliated with World Health Organisation (WHO), International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) or Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) an option to sign our WHO/Elsevier non-exclusive licence agreement. This applies to papers published either subscription or gold open access. For gold open access content, WHO offers our authors a choice between a commercial (CC BY NC ND 3.0 IGO Opens in new window ) and a non-commercial (CC BY 3.0 IGO Opens in new window ) licence.

For more information, please contact us at: [email protected]
Is there an embargo period with open access?

Papers published as gold open access are available immediately and freely for anyone to read. For the green open access option, at 6 months after publication authors can deposit the final accepted version of their paper in any repository they choose, and the published paper will be made free to access on our websites.
If I do not choose open access, how can I share my article? Can I post an Author Accepted Manuscript online?
There are several options for sharing manuscripts and published journal articles depending on your publication option. The Lancet Group also has its own preprint server for sharing early research, ahead of peer review. For more information, please visit:

Preprints with The Lancet

Article sharing policy Opens in new window

APCs, waivers, and discounts

How do I calculate the waivers I could be entitled to?

We are committed to publishing any paper suitable for publication in our journals, and firmly believe that ability to pay must never be a barrier to publication. For authors who do not have institutional or funding body support for APCs, we will apply discounts and waivers. If you are unable to pay the full APC, please contact us once your paper is accepted and provide information on the funder(s) of your research, which routes you have explored to obtain funding for the APC, and how much you are able to pay.

Contact us at: [email protected]
When do I need to pay my APC?

Authors fees are paid only after your paper is accepted for publication in a journal.
Does the APC include taxes?

Prices listed above do not include taxes. Taxes will be reflected in the final invoice and may vary based on the local applicable tax rules. Any VAT tax exemption must be verified before it can be applied.
Can you provide prices in other currencies?

You will be able to view prices in local currencies including USD, EUR, GBP, and JPY based on current exchange rates. The relevant currency will be presented to you on the OACS platform.