In July 2021 Cambridge University Press worked with an external research agency to explore a number of key areas around researcher awareness and needs in open access (OA), impact and pain points.

In total over 4,000 Academics from around the world responded, of mixed career stages and spanning over 20 subjects in the Humanities, Social Sciences and STM. Becky Roberts, Senior Customer Insights Manager, details how we can use the findings to provide the academic community with the best possible service and experience.

On Open Access

Despite real interest in the principles and values of OA there was a big gap between this and the practical understanding of OA. 76% of respondents agreed with the statement that OA was progressive and should be encouraged, and 85% agreed that it was important to them that research was made available to everyone.

However in practice 54%of respondents were not confident in knowing the difference between Green and Gold OA, or understanding national or regional OA mandates. 47% were not confident in understanding institutional OA agreements and 44% we not confident on licenses and copyright.

The survey also asked what would make them more likely to publish OA, with the biggest response being lowering publishing charges or more funding options. This was followed by More information about Open Access books models and better collaboration between authors, publishers, libraries and funders.

Ensuring that researchers globally can navigate the complex world of OA is a real priority for Cambridge. Over the past two years we’ve been holding webinars on all aspects of OA and making sure our resources, web pages and documents are updated with the latest guidance including our Open Access video resource page. Our  ‘Open Access myths’ and ‘Open Access benefits’ videos will provide a basic grounding in key principles, and our webinars, information pages and other documents will help support researchers who are actively pursuing OA publishing. We’ve also introduced a discounts and waivers tool to help researchers see if their institution has a transformative agreement in place to help cover the all or a portion of the Article Processing Charge (APC) OA cost. These are a vital part of our mission to transform research publishing to open access.

The Books Open Access landscape

The cost of publishing (or Book publishing charge) was deemed the biggest challenge of publishing a book OA (with 46% of respondents selecting this option). This was followed by unclear publication policies and processes (23%) and concerns about copyright and third party rights (22%).

Cambridge has launched the innovative Flip it Open pilot to drive change in the books publishing landscape using a model that is more inclusive, equitable and scalable. The pilot features 28 titles, which when they meet a set amount of revenue, will be made it freely available online via library purchase as an OA book.  You can find out more about the initiative here.

Top concerns when publishing books and journal articles

Respondents were asked about their top concerns when choosing to publish books and journal articles. For those publishing books, 58% of respondents indicated that Ensuring Impact and reaching the right audience was their primary concern, and for articles this was Having my submission accepted for publication.

Slow publication times was a major concern when publishing both an article and a book (50% for journals authors and 36% for books).

Cambridge is committed to meeting author needs and improving publication time is a key part of these goals. Through an ongoing investment in our publishing systems and processes throughout the author journey we are improving on publication times for our authors.

For more information on the survey conducted please contact Rebecca.roberts@cambridge.org.