The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is one of the world's oldest scientific societies, founded in 1820 and based at Burlington House in London. Unlike the mega-publishers, its journal portfolio is small and deep: three peer-reviewed titles covering astronomy, astrophysics, and geophysics, produced and hosted in partnership with Oxford University Press (OUP). The flagship, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), has been publishing since 1827 and is one of the world's largest and most prestigious astronomy journals.

The single most important recent change for authors: on 1 January 2024, all RAS journals became fully gold open access. There is no subscription route anymore - every accepted article is published under a CC BY licence and an article processing charge (APC) applies, unless it is covered by a Read & Publish agreement or a waiver. This guide covers which journal fits your paper, what the APCs actually are, how peer review works, and how to submit.

• Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS) - first published in 1827; despite the historic name it is not monthly and no longer carries the Society's notices. It publishes peer-reviewed research across all of astronomy and astrophysics and is online-only since going fully open access. Indexed in Scopus, Web of Science, NASA ADS, and DOAJ.
• MNRAS Letters - a short-communication section of MNRAS with its own submission stream, for results that merit rapid publication.
• Geophysical Journal International (GJI) - published on behalf of the RAS and the Deutsche Geophysikalische Gesellschaft (DGG). Covers theoretical, computational, and observational geophysics: seismology, geodynamics, geomagnetism, gravity, and planetary interiors.
• RAS Techniques and Instruments (RASTI) - an online-only journal for the methods side of the field: instrumentation, statistical methods, machine learning, software, databases, and mission concepts.
• Astronomy & Geophysics (A&G) - the Society's magazine of record for news, reviews, and community affairs.

All three research journals flipped to fully gold open access on 1 January 2024. Every article is published under a non-exclusive CC BY licence, authors retain copyright, and all content is immediately free to read.

APCs from the current OUP price pages (GBP, before tax) - always check the journal's own charges page before submitting, as prices are revised annually:

Three ways to avoid paying the APC out of pocket:

1. Read & Publish agreements - RAS journals are included in OUP's transformative agreements. If your institution has one, the APC is covered automatically at acceptance; check the OUP participating-institutions list or ask your library.
2. LMIC waivers - corresponding authors based in low- and middle-income countries and regions may receive a full waiver or discount.
3. Discretionary waivers - the RAS and OUP grant additional case-by-case waivers for authors without access to funds.

RAS journals use single-anonymized peer review: reviewers know the authors' identities, but reviewer names are confidential unless they choose to sign. MNRAS operates with a large board of scientific editors who handle papers in their specialty and typically consult one or more external referees. GJI and RASTI follow the same editor-plus-referee model. Decisions are usually accept, minor revision, major revision, or reject; MNRAS in particular is known for efficient editorial handling given its volume.

1. Pick the journal using the decision table above - and note that MNRAS and MNRAS Letters have separate submission streams.
2. Prepare the manuscript. LaTeX is the norm in this community: MNRAS has an official LaTeX class (mnras.cls), and SciSpace hosts formats for RAS journals. All three journals use the MNRAS author-year citation style.
3. Submit via ScholarOne Manuscripts. Each journal has its own ScholarOne site (e.g., mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mnras, /rasti). Overleaf integrates directly with ScholarOne for LaTeX submissions.
4. At acceptance, sign the non-exclusive CC BY licence and arrange the APC - via your institution's Read & Publish deal, a waiver, or direct payment (claim the 20% discount if you are an RAS member).
5. Preprints are standard practice - posting to arXiv before or at submission is normal and accepted across the RAS journals.

The RAS journals follow COPE guidance on publication ethics, corrections, and retractions, and OUP is a COPE and OASPA member. Standard requirements apply: no duplicate submission, disclosure of conflicts of interest, appropriate data availability statements, and author-contribution transparency. Corrections are published as correction notices, which carry no APC.

For astronomers and geophysicists, the appeal is a society-owned, non-profit portfolio with two-century-deep prestige: publishing fees support the Society's charitable work - grants, outreach, and the library - rather than shareholders. MNRAS offers the reach of a top-tier astronomy journal at an APC well below commercial flagship titles, and the fully-OA model means every paper is immediately readable by anyone. The trade-off is scope: if your paper falls outside astronomy, astrophysics, or geophysics, you will need a different publisher.