Publication Guide
The American Nuclear Society (ANS) is the professional home of nuclear science and engineering in the United States. Founded in 1954 by a group of scientists and engineers who first met in December 1953 at the offices of Nucleonics magazine in New York, ANS today has more than 10,000 members in over 40 countries. Its publishing program is small but foundational: three peer-reviewed technical journals, an open research platform, two industry magazines, conference Transactions and Proceedings, and the ANS standards series.
Since 2020 the three technical journals have been produced in partnership with Taylor & Francis and hosted at ans.tandfonline.com, while ANS retains full editorial control. That matters practically: you submit, review and proof through Taylor & Francis systems, but scope, editors and acceptance decisions are ANS's.
Which ANS venue fits your paper?
| You're most likely to... | Choose this venue |
|---|---|
| Report fundamental or methodological work in reactor physics, neutronics, criticality, thermal hydraulics or radiation transport | Nuclear Science and Engineering - launched 1956, the oldest peer-reviewed journal in the field; monthly; 2025 JCR impact factor around 1.3 |
| Report applied or engineering work: reactor operations, fuel cycle, waste management, safety analysis, isotopes, instrumentation | Nuclear Technology - the applied counterpart to NSE; 2025 JCR impact factor around 2.0 |
| Work on magnetic or inertial fusion, plasma engineering, tritium science or fusion materials | Fusion Science and Technology - the field's dedicated engineering journal, published under earlier titles since 1981; 2025 JCR impact factor around 1.2 |
| Want fully open access, fast publication, or to share data, protocols, software or negative results | NSTOR (Nuclear Science and Technology Open Research) - ANS's F1000-powered platform, open for submissions since August 2023 |
| Have a conference paper for an ANS meeting | Transactions of the American Nuclear Society - summaries presented at ANS national and topical meetings |
| Are writing for practitioners rather than researchers | Nuclear News or Radwaste Solutions - ANS's member magazines, editorially commissioned rather than peer reviewed |
What ANS actually publishes
- Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE) - founded March 1956, the Society's first journal and the oldest peer-reviewed title in nuclear engineering. Publishes fundamental and applied research across the peaceful use of nuclear energy and the applications of nuclear particles and radiation.
- Nuclear Technology (NT) - the applied-engineering journal, covering reactor technology, fuel cycle and waste, safety, nonproliferation, isotopes and radiation applications.
- Fusion Science and Technology (FST) - fusion engineering and plasma technology, including tritium science, blanket and first-wall design, inertial confinement, and fusion safety.
- NSTOR - an open research platform built on F1000's model, accepting research articles plus method articles, study protocols, software tool articles, data notes, brief reports and opinion pieces.
- Non-journal output - Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, meeting Proceedings, the Nuclear News and Radwaste Solutions magazines, the Nuclear News Buyers Guide, ANS books, and the ANS consensus standards program.
Open access and costs
ANS keeps the default route free for authors. Publishing a standard peer-reviewed article in NSE, NT or FST costs nothing; the article sits behind the subscription paywall, with ANS members getting free electronic access and non-members able to purchase individual articles.
| Route | What it is | Cost to author |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription (default) | Standard peer-reviewed publication in NSE, NT or FST | $0 |
| Open Select (hybrid OA) | Taylor & Francis's hybrid option, elected after acceptance; article is free to read immediately | An APC - use the Taylor & Francis open access cost finder for the current per-journal figure before you commit |
| NSTOR (fully OA) | ANS's open research platform; all content free to read on publication | An APC, discounted for ANS members |
| Green OA | Self-archiving under Taylor & Francis's standard author rights, with a per-title embargo on the accepted manuscript | $0 |
Two practical notes. First, if your institution or funder has a Taylor & Francis read-and-publish agreement, the Open Select charge on an ANS journal may already be covered - check with your library before paying anything yourself. Second, APCs are revised annually and vary by title, so treat any figure you find in a secondary source as indicative and confirm on the journal's own page.
Peer review
All three technical journals use single-anonymized peer review: reviewers see author identities, authors do not see reviewer identities. Each journal has a named editor - Nuclear Science and Engineering is edited by Farzad Rahnema - working with associate editors who handle papers by subject area.
NSTOR works differently. It uses open, post-publication peer review: a submission that passes editorial and ethics checks is published first, then reviewed openly, with reviewer names and reports attached to the article. Versions are updated as review proceeds, and indexing follows once the article passes review.
How to submit
- Pick the journal. NSE for fundamental work, NT for applied engineering, FST for fusion. If in doubt, read the current issue's table of contents rather than the scope statement.
- Read the instructions for authors on the journal's Taylor & Francis page - length limits, figure specifications and reference style are set per title.
- Format your references in ANS style, the author-year system used across ANS publications.
- Prepare the manuscript using the ANS LaTeX or Word template available on SciSpace.
- Submit through the Taylor & Francis submission portal at rp.tandfonline.com. ANS journals moved onto Taylor & Francis systems with the publishing partnership, so the older ANS-hosted submission route no longer applies - always start from the link on the journal's own page.
- Elect open access after acceptance, if you want it. Open Select is offered post-acceptance, not at submission, so the decision does not affect review.
Ethics and integrity
ANS is a COPE member and applies COPE guidance on authorship, corrections and retractions; Taylor & Francis's editorial policies apply on top for the three partnered journals. Expect standard requirements: disclosure of funding and conflicts of interest, export-control and classification review for sensitive nuclear material, and clear statements on data availability. NSTOR goes further, requiring underlying data to be deposited in an approved open repository as a condition of publication.








