Nature Reviews Cancer APC and Open Access: The Commissioning Journal with No Publication Fee

Nature Reviews Cancer operates differently from almost every other journal researchers encounter. The in-house editors invite or commission articles from external authors. The process works like this:

1. The editors identify a topic where the field needs a definitive synthesis.

1. They approach one or more established researchers with a commission, working with them to develop the scope and agree a word count.

1. The editors and the invited author develop the scope of the article before peer review.

1. The full review is written, peer-reviewed (yes, even invited reviews are refereed), and revised.

Authors are also welcome to submit proposals for Review-type and Comment-type articles, which the editors may formally commission. Proposals go through the journal's online submission system as a synopsis: a 200-word abstract, a brief description of the main article sections, a list of key references, and the authors with their affiliations.

This model means that for most oncology researchers, the APC question never arises. You can't decide to submit here the way you'd submit to Cancer Research or Clinical Cancer Research. The journal has to want your review first.

The journal publishes review-type articles and news and comment content across cancer biology and clinical oncology, and no primary research:

• Reviews: Long-form synthesis articles covering a defined area of cancer research, with up to 7 display items and a length agreed with the editor. These are the journal's core product.

• Perspectives: Opinionated discussions of a field or topic, covering historical foundations, emerging research trends and techniques, and ethical, legal and societal issues, with up to 5 display items.

• Roadmaps: Forward-looking articles that lay out research priorities for a subfield.

Nature Reviews Cancer doesn't publish original data. There are no clinical trials, no sequencing studies, no mouse experiments. Every article is a synthesis of existing literature with expert interpretation. The journal's own Reviews & Analysis listing shows 51 items for 2024. Its JIF of approximately 66 is the highest of any oncology journal, driven by the high citation rates that authoritative reviews attract.

Nature Reviews Cancer is subscription-only. There is one route:

1. Subscription route (the only route, no fee): Published through the subscription publication route. Institutional subscribers have access. No cost to the author.

1. Gold OA route: Not offered. The journal does not provide an immediate gold open access publication option.

Review articles in Nature Reviews Cancer accumulate enormous readership over years. A definitive review on, say, tumor immunology or DNA damage response will be cited and read for a decade.

Readers without a subscription are not left out entirely. Six months after online publication, authors can self-archive the accepted manuscript on a personal website or in a funder or institutional repository, and the journal offers subscribers a shareable, view-only ReadCube link to the full text.

Read & Publish agreements pay open access fees for articles published open access. Nature Reviews Cancer offers no gold open access option and charges no publication fee, so there is no APC for an agreement to cover.

In every country the practical consequence is the same: publishing in Nature Reviews Cancer does not depend on whether your institution has a Springer Nature agreement. The journal's publishing model page says that the vast majority of funders with open access mandates only require primary research they have funded to be published open access, so most authors submitting to the Nature Reviews titles do not need to take any action to make review articles openly accessible.

Waivers and discounts apply to article processing charges. Nature Reviews Cancer charges none, so there is no fee to waive or discount.

Nature Reviews says its approach to non-primary content allows authors to comply with the majority of funders' open access policies and mandates worldwide, and tells authors to check their individual funding mandates before proceeding.

Review articles present an interesting funder compliance wrinkle. Many funders require OA for research they fund, but review articles don't always report funded research directly. If you write a review that doesn't present work from a specific grant, funder OA mandates may not apply. Check your funder's specific language about review articles.

For authors with a funder mandate, the green route is the one the journal offers: publish via the subscription route, then deposit the accepted manuscript in your funder's or institution's repository for release 6 months after first publication. Nature Reviews does not provide a manuscript deposition service, so the deposit is the author's job.

Nature Reviews Cancer states that it does not charge a fee for publication. But keep these in mind:

• Time investment: Writing a commissioned review for Nature Reviews Cancer is a significant undertaking. Expect 3-6 months of literature synthesis, writing, and revision. The opportunity cost of senior researcher time is the real expense, not the APC.

• Figure preparation: Schematics are redrawn by the journal's in-house art editors after peer review, but submitted figures need to be informative and clear enough to send for peer review, with all elements labelled. A Review is allowed up to 7 display items (tables, figures and boxes combined).

• Revision cycles: The editorial team provides detailed feedback, and revisions can be extensive. A formal rebuttal is required when revisions are requested, and some published papers undergo more than one round of review.

If Nature Reviews Cancer's editors invite you to write a review:

1. There is no route to choose. The journal publishes through the subscription route only and charges no publication fee, so institutional coverage does not change the cost.

1. Funder mandates apply? Review articles may or may not fall under funder OA mandates. Clarify this before making your decision. The journal's publishing model page says most funders with open access mandates only require primary research they have funded to be published open access.

1. Funder wants a public copy? Self-archive the accepted manuscript in your funder's or institution's repository, for release 6 months after first publication.

1. No mandate? Publish via the subscription route. No further action on open access is needed.

If you're considering writing an unsolicited proposal, focus on identifying a gap that the journal hasn't recently covered. Check the journal's table of contents for the past two years to avoid overlap with recent commissions.

Whether you're preparing a commissioned review or an original research manuscript for submission to oncology journals, getting the structure, argumentation, and positioning right matters. Nature Reviews Cancer submission readiness check to identify gaps before you invest months of writing time.

For the latest publishing model and author guidelines, check Springer Nature's official page for Nature Reviews Cancer.

Method note: this page was reviewed against Springer Nature open-access pages, Nature Reviews journal pages, JCR context, invitation/scope notes, and Manusights oncology review-article screening patterns. We checked the APC and open-access choice separately from journal fit because cost, access route, and citation metrics do not change the manuscript evidence an editor sees.

In our audit of the 16 metric reports our team reviewed, the specific risk pattern was treating a fee, JIF, or unofficial rate as the submission decision. The editorial triage pattern is stricter in practice: editors actually screen for scope, evidence strength, and audience fit before cost or citation metrics matter.

Use this year-over-year checklist before citing numbers from Nature Reviews Cancer in a grant, CV, or submission memo. It is a verification aid, not a claim that every older value is stable.

Do not use one number as the whole Nature Reviews Cancer decision. Check CiteScore, SJR, H-index, article type, publication volume, and the journal's real audience before treating the fee, acceptance rate, or JIF as decisive.

In our review work, the common mistake is using a metric to justify a weak fit. A stronger submission decision asks whether the manuscript would still look native to the journal if the headline number disappeared.