Publish your article Open Access under a Read and Publish agreement
If you would like to publish your article to Open Access, we ask that you select a creative commons licence, using the form below. The CC licence you choose will determine how readers can use your content. You only need to complete this form if you have already completed an author publishing agreement (licence to publish form).
Please click here to download the Creative Commons Licence Selection form.
Once you have completed this form, please return it to oaqueries@cambridge.org. If you have any further questions, please review our FAQs below or email oaqueries@cambridge.org.
If you have received an email from Cambridge University Press with a link to an online form, please complete the form online linked within the email. This allows us to process your request quicker.
FAQs
Q. How do I download and complete the form?
A. Depending on your browser, the Creative Commons Licence Selection form may automatically download. In most cases, the form will open in a new tab or window. You should then right click, select '"save as", and save the document to your workspace or desktop. Once downloaded, you can type directly into the fields marked by the lightly shaded boxes. Please ensure that you save the completed document attaching in an email to oaqueries@cambridge.org.
Q. What happens after I have filled in this form?
A. Your completed creative commons licence selection will be sent to your Content Manager who will process your request. You will then receive an email from our third party provider, Rightslink-CCC, who process APC transactions on our behalf.
You will receive one of two emails, depending on the terms of your institution's agreement:
- Confirmation that your article will be publishing Open Access and your APC will be covered by your institution
- An email asking you to 'coordinate payment'. Please log into Rightslink and 'seek funding' from your institution, following the instructions laid out in Step 3, Option 3 of this guide. Your request for funding will then be sent to your institution for approval. If your APC is covered in full, you will not be asked for any payment information and will not be charged for the transaction. This information is only required if your APC is partially covered by your institution.
Once your APC transaction has been processed, your article will then be converted to Open Access. If your article has already published on Cambridge Core, you will receive an email confirming that your article is now available as OA.
Q. I haven't signed an author publishing agreement yet, do I need to sign this form as well?
A. If you have not yet completed an
Q. I received an email with a link to an online form but it isn't working. What do I do?
A. If you receive a link to an online form, please complete the form online. You will receive a confirmation email shortly after. If you have trouble accessing this form, please download the PDF version of the form available at the top of this page. Instructions for completing and returning this form are above.
Q. Which Creative Commons license should I select?
Creative Commons licenses play an important role in facilitating Gold Open Access publishing; the license that you choose will determine how readers can use your article. You may be required to select a Creative Commons license which complies with your funder or institutional mandates, for example research-funded authors may need to choose CC-BY (Creative Commons Attribution License). You can find out more about Creative Commons licenses on our information page: click here.
Q. I want to make my article Open Access, will I incur any cost for the Articles Processing Charge (APC)?
A. You should have received an email from us informing you of your opportunity to publish Open Access under a Read and Publish agreement that we have with your institution. Some of these agreements will provide a 100% waiver, meaning that you can publish Open Access at no cost to you. For agreements that only offer a partial discount, you will have to pay any remaining charges in order for your article to be published OA.
You can find out more about your institution's agreement and the discount available to you by following the link in your email, or visiting our Read and Publish information page.
Q. Will my institution be charged for my APC?
A. Your institution has pre-paid for OA publishing as part of their Read and Publish agreement. Publishing OA under this agreement will not impose any additional cost to your library.
Q. I am no longer affiliated with the institution where I conducted my research and is named on the article. Does that still make me eligible to convert my article to Open Access under R&P?
A. Eligibility is based on the corresponding author’s affiliation as it is printed on the article; this affiliation should reflect where the research was mostly conducted. If you are in doubt, we recommend that you first check with your library. Further FAQs relating to 'corresponding author' are available: click here.
Q. I am the corresponding author of a paper and would like to make it Open Access under the Read & Publish deal negotiated with my institution. However, not all of my co-authors are affiliated with the same institution. Is the paper still eligible?
A. Yes. Eligibility for funding under a Read & Publish deal is based solely on the affiliation of the corresponding author and the co-authors of a paper do not have to be based in the same place. Further FAQs relating to 'corresponding author' are available: click here.
Q. Is there a deadline to convert my article?
For most agreements, the deadline to convert your article to OA is the 31st March of the year after your article is published. So, for articles published in 2022, the eligibility window lasts until the 31st March 2023.
Final approval of your APC waiver is at the discretion of your institutional library and may be subject to their own funding checks if they hold a capped or token-limited agreement with us. Discover more about your institution’s agreement here.
We advise authors to check funder or institutional policies to ensure choices made during the publication process comply with relevant guidelines.