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  3. Open access policies
  4. Read and publish agreements
  5. Convert your article to Open Access

If you have been informed that your article is eligible to be made Open Access under your institution's publishing agreement (read and publish agreement) and would like to convert your article, you are required to select a creative commons licence.

To convert your article to Open Access, please complete this form. 

Please check the following eligibility criteria before submitting the form:

  • Ensure you are the corresponding author of the manuscript
  • Your manuscript is original research. Eligible article types are research articles, review articles, rapid communications, brief reports or case reports
  • Your manuscript has been published in a journal included in your institution's chosen collection. Please see our Eligibility Checker Tool for a complete list
  • Your manuscript was accepted for publication during the terms of your institution's agreement
    Your request must be submitted no later than the 31st March of the year after your article's online publication


Deal restrictions may apply and you will be advised upon submitting the form. Final approval may at your libraries discretion. Please contact oaqueries@cambridge.org should you have any questions.

Need support?

If you're unsure about any of the information required to submit this form and your request, please contact oaqueries@cambridge.org. Our team will be able to support you and can provide further instructions. FAQs can also be found below.

FAQs

Q. Which Creative Commons license should I select?

A. 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; 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 (e.g. a 20% APC 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 by using our checker tool. 

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. 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 author publishing agreement, please follow the instructions in your acceptance email. Please do not sign and return the form above.

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.