Cambridge University Press has agreed a Read and Publish deal with Jisc Collections, which will help UK universities and colleges make a sustainable transition to publishing Open Access content in our Cambridge journals. The agreement covers both the payment for institutions to access the Press’s journals and the Article Processing Charges their authors would normally pay to publish their work Open Access in those journals.

With UK institutions at different stages in the transition to Open Access, the deal has been drawn up to allow them to move at a pace which suits them. The terms of the agreement include options for institutions to begin the transition, with increases in Open Access publishing linked to a decrease in subscription spending:

Flexibility has been built into the agreement by offering the choice to change the originally selected option from year to year (up or down). For example, a Light OA option in Year 1 can be moved to Medium OA in Year 2; or Heavy OA in Year 1 moved to Light OA.

APCs can also be rolled over within the three 3 year term of the agreement. If institutions feel they are not using the APCs, the unused APCs can be rolled over and the institutions could also then go down an option level the next year to use up the APCs, e.g. from Medium to Light.

The deal follows other read and publish deals with the Bibsam consortium of Swedish higher education and research institutions in November and with the UKB consortium of Dutch university libraries in 2017. To find out how the Open Access publishing process works in practice, please read our Step by Step Guide.