News
Cambridge OA fees waived for low- and middle- income countries
Cambridge University Press has waived open access fees for researchers from low- and middle-income countries. The Cambridge Open Equity Initiative
allows scholars to reach the widest possible audience by making open access a free option for them. The publisher is now seeking support for the initiative from institutional partners, such as major university libraries, to make it sustainable. Institutional customers will join Cambridge University Press in making voluntary contributions to the initiative to support authors in lower-income countries. The move will help overcome financial
barriers to publishing open access research in countries where research funding is scarce. Critically, this fund will be a publisher-library collaboration, recognising the role multiple stakeholders are playing in the open access transformation. From 1 July 2023, authors from 5,000 institutions in 107 countries will not need to apply for funding to publish under the Cambridge Open Equity Initiative, which covers 400 Cambridge journals. Cambridge
University Press will automatically recognise eligibility of corresponding authors when a paper is accepted. Cambridge will also remove fees for independent scholars from those low- and middle-income countries, using a simple form. Under the current system, without fee
waivers, article processing charges (APCs) for gold open access publications are typically around £2,000 or $3,000, varying by journal. Authors at institutions with ‘transformative agreements’ – primarily in high income countries – can avoid such charges. Earlier this year, Cambridge announced that more than half of its research papers are now published open access, as the publisher moves to make the vast majority freely available to all by 2025. The Cambridge Open Equity Initiative aims to accelerate this transition, particularly for
scholars outside of high income countries. Mandy Hill, Managing Director of
Academic at Cambridge University Press & Assessment, said: “We want to publish the best research, wherever it comes from. As open access shifts costs from readers to authors, we should guard against unintended consequences – especially in an unequal global higher education system. We have chosen to take this collaborative approach to create the fund rather than adding more on to article processing charges and transformative agreement prices, as we believe it gives greatest transparency. “We cannot do this alone. We are grateful
to our partners, including librarians and university leaders, for recognising the opportunity to accelerate open research worldwide. We will continue to push for a more open global research system.”
Publishers vie for Phase 2 of open access community framework
The open access community framework (OACF) will announce the successful submissions from not-for-profit monograph publishers at a special webinar in June. Following its successful
pilot scheme in 2022, the OACF opened to submissions from the publishers in April and closed at the start of May. It connects not-for- profit ‘diamond’ open access publishers – those that operate under a free-to-read, free-to- publish model – with the higher education (HE) sector. The scheme was launched to support diversity in the open access (OA) marketplace. Changes to this year’s framework, agreed with the HE sector, were also designed to reduce the burden of book processing charges (BPCs).
30 Research Information Spring 2023
Under the scheme, UK higher education libraries are invited to pledge their support to publishers over a three-year period. The OACF is designed to help smaller publishers expand the number of titles they produce, improve data processes and boost marketing efforts to increase sustainability. The scheme is also being
restricted to monographs and books in series to align it with the strategic objectives of sector libraries and the new UKRI monographs policy. Organisers hope phase two will receive submissions from publishers focusing on British-based authors and content. To increase the chances of all submissions reaching their funding target, the second phase of the
scheme will reduce the number of publishers put forward to the pledging stage of the process. This change was put in place after feedback on the pilot. Once the successful publishers are announced, libraries will be able to pledge support on the Jisc Licensing Manager platform until December 2023 or until publishers reach their funding targets. Jisc licensing manager
Caroline Mackay said: “With the UKRI monographs policy launching in January 2024, we are keen to explore and support publishers and libraries with diamond OA initiatives, which collect library funding to operate under a free-to-read, free-to-publish model. “This can prove an
alternative path to BPCs,
which are unaffordable and unscalable for many libraries. We hope funding from the OACF will improve the sector’s sustainability by boosting rather than replacing existing revenue streams.” Sarah Thompson, assistant
director (content and open research) at the University of York’s Library, Archives & Learning Services, which participated in the OACF pilot scheme, said: “OACF highlighted several diamond initiatives we weren't already aware of and provided us with an easy route to support those which matched the teaching and research strengths of the University of York. The scheme highlights how libraries have an important role in creating a sustainable OA future for book publishing.”
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