Publishing open access
Publishing your research Gold Open Access (Gold OA) helps to advance discovery by allowing anyone, anywhere to find, read, and benefit from your research.
We understand that navigating open access is tricky and we are here to support you in whichever route you choose to publish. Across our journals and books, we offer the option to publish your research Gold OA, working with publishing partners to develop open access for different communities. Our Green Open Access policies also allow you to archive some versions of your publications in repositories, or to share them socially.
The majority of Cambridge journals support Gold Open Access:
- Fully Gold Open Access journals (in which all research content is published Gold OA)
- Hybrid journals (in which authors have the option to publish Gold OA if they choose)
Detailed information about your about open access options when publishing with a specific journal can be found on the journal’s homepage. Please navigate to the ‘Information’ area, and look under ‘Journal policies’ for ‘Open access options’.
Find out more about our open access policies
"Our vision is to unlock the potential of high quality research and build an open future"
Benefits of publishing Open Access
Did you know that 75% of OA articles get more citations than their non-OA equivalents, receiving on average 30-50% more citations?
Open Access (OA) makes scholarly research permanently available online without restriction, which can provide benefits to all those who have a stake in the scholarly publishing process – researchers, funders, students, librarians, scholarly societies, publishers and the general public. For Cambridge University Press, OA plays an important part in allowing us to fulfil our mission of furthering the advancement of learning, knowledge and research worldwide.
Gold OA and Green OA each present opportunities as well as risks for journals and books. We help authors and our journal publishing partners to consider OA options whilst understanding that different publications, in different subject areas, need an approach that is tailored to their circumstances.
The benefits of OA include:
Discoverability and dissemination:
OA works are freely available online for anyone in the world to access and share. Researchers can access OA literature, even outside a university campus, without encountering paywalls. Authors can benefit from the open availability of their research to others, potentially leading to an increase in the visibility and usage of their work. Many funding agencies have encouraged or mandated OA because the potential for enhanced visibility and discoverability promises a greater return on their investment.
Educational and other re-use:
Gold OA works can often be re-used without needing to request additional permission from publishers. For example, an OA article could be re-published in a university course package, or translated by someone into a different language, or figures or text from an article could be re-used in a presentation. Through Gold OA it is possible to enable anyone to make derivative versions of your work, depending upon the particular Creative Commons licence you apply.
Public access and engagement:
OA means greater access for society at large and potentially greater public engagement with research. OA can help professionals outside academia who rely on research – including health workers, teachers and lawyers – to benefit from access to the latest findings.
Funding Gold Open Access publication
You may have heard that publishing Gold Open Access requires paying a fee, often referred to as an article processing charge (APC). In some cases Gold OA is supported by APCs, which are typically paid by an author’s funding body or institution. However Cambridge also offers multiple other funding options to support Gold OA, particularly for authors with limited access to funding.
For full details, please check our funding options for Cambridge authors.