This journal is a wholly open access journal, which means all articles are published as Gold Open Access under a Creative Commons licence. This enables anyone to access and redistribute the content and, depending upon the licence, re-use the content in new or derivative works with attribution. The terms of re-use for Gold Open Access content are stated in the copyright line of the article.

Authors may choose any of the six Creative Commons licences when publishing Gold Open Access in this journal.

Open Access Funding

Multiple funding routes for Gold Open Access publication are available to authors publishing in this journal:

• If the corresponding author of a research article is affiliated with an institution with which Cambridge University Press has an open access publishing agreement, in the majority of cases this will cover the full costs of publication (specific terms and conditions vary) and Cambridge will liaise directly with the institution to determine eligibility and secure this funding. Authors can use our eligibility checker to see if their institution has an active agreement.
• The Cambridge Open Equity Initiative (COEI) funds Gold Open Access publishing for authors from over 100 low- and middle-income countries, covering over 5,000 institutions. Eligibility is automatically established during the publication process and no Gold Open Access fees will be charged if the corresponding author of a research article is based in one of these countries. 
• If the research behind the article was funded by a grant or arrangement with a funding body that supports the payment of article processing charges (APCs), authors are asked to pay an APC out of those funds. Please check the fees and pricing page for details of this journal’s charges, and our central APC page for further information such as APC refund policies.
• Authors from low- and middle-income countries who are not covered by an institutional open access agreement or the Cambridge Open Equity Initiative may be eligible for support under the Research4Life scheme. Corresponding authors of research articles based in 'Group A’ countries will automatically have APC costs waived entirely, and authors based in ‘Group B’ countries will automatically receive a 50% discount on an article’s APC.
• This journal also grants waivers on a discretionary basis, for authors who do not have funds available to pay an APC and are not covered by the options above. Authors must request a waiver at or before submission, before an article enters editorial consideration, by filling out a waiver request form.

Please note that the decision whether to accept a paper for publication will rest solely with the Editor, and without reference to the funding situation of the authors. The Editor, editorial board members, and reviewers will have no involvement with the billing of APCs and cannot grant discretionary waivers.

This journal follows Cambridge’s Green Open Access policy for scientific, technical and medical journals, which means an embargo of six months applies before authors can make accepted manuscripts available in non-commercial repositories. The embargo period starts from the date the article’s Version of Record is published online by Cambridge. 

Social Sharing

This journal participates in Cambridge Core Share, an initiative that allows a read-only version of a final published PDF (the Version of Record) to be shared and easily accessed by anyone. Core Share links, and Core Share PDFs containing the links, can be freely shared on social media sites and scholarly collaboration networks to enhance both the impact and discoverability of research. 

Preprint policy

A preprint is an early version of an article prior to the version accepted for publication in a journal. This journal allows preprints to be posted anywhere at any time, including before submission to the journal. For more information, see the Cambridge University Press preprint policy.