At Cambridge, we’re committed to creating Open Access publications and we’re keen to experiment and explore all options for making this happen.

That’s why we’ve partnered with fellow publisher Unbound, to experiment with crowdfunding an Open Access book. We’re hoping to gain support from a diverse group of people, scattered worldwide, who would like to support making a book Open Access, so that it’s free to all readers globally, while simultaneously receiving a printed copy for themselves.

In this way, we hope to make a book which would normally struggle to gain Open Access funding, into a successful project enabling as wide a readership as possible. Aside from the satisfaction of being one of the backers of the project, the supporters also receive additional benefits, like getting their name printed in the supporters list in the back of the book. We even have a reward level for dinner with the author, for those who would like to discuss the issues in the book in more detail.

The book being funded is:

The Case for Scottish Independence: Nationalist Political Thought in Scotland, c. 1960-2014

This will be a fresh, original and up to date examination of the politics of Scottish nationalism, written in a readable style for students, researchers, politicians and anyone else interested in modern Scottish identity and politics. In particular, the book examines the ideas of Scottish nationalism, investigating how the key arguments for Scottish independence were crafted by intellectuals, politicians and activists in the fifty years or so before the 2014 referendum.

The book doesn’t take sides in the debate and is very much a history of the political ideas that lead to the current Scottish political landscape.  We feel that it will become essential reading for anyone interested in fully understanding modern Scotland.

Ben Denne, Director of Publishing for the Press’s academic books, said: “As a university press we welcome and support the goals of open research – to increase collaboration and to improve the accessibility, efficiency and impact of research. The challenge is to do so in a way that allows us to continue investing in high quality content.”

Mathew Clayton, Head of Publishing at Unbound, said: “This feels like a ground-breaking moment – using Unbound’s platform to help increase Open Access in academic publishing would dramatically shift the way things have previously worked. We are really delighted to be partnering with Cambridge University Press in this bold experiment.

The author Ben Jackson said: “It’s exciting to be working with Cambridge University Press and Unbound and to be part of this experiment in open access publishing. If successful, it holds out the promise of making not only my own work but that of other academic authors more widely accessible, improving the spread of ideas, scholarship and debate.”

Ben Denne added: “There’s unlikely to be a one-size-fits-all solution to publishing academic books open access. What works for some titles may not work for others; what works for monographs may not be suitable for another type of book.

“In this case, individuals are effectively buying a copy of the book while raising the funds to publish open access in advance. It also allows us to experiment with crowdfunding as a way to promote the book, drawing on Unbound’s expertise.

“It has to be trial and error. That’s how change and innovation happen. The important point is that we are out there trying, testing different publishing models, working with the academic community and others to find the best solutions.”

To find out more about the book and the way that the crowdfunding support works, please visit the book’s homepage on the Unbound website.