Read and Publish: Cambridge University Press
BCU Library has a Read & Publish deal with Cambridge University Press (CUP) until 31st December 2025.
If you have questions about what happens after this date, please see the Approaching the End of the Deal section, or the Next Gen OA Updates page.
This deal covers the fees for the following:
Please see below for eligibility criteria and links to more information.
Criteria and Restrictions
Author eligibility
- You must be the corresponding author
- You must declare your affiliation with BCU
Article eligibility
Eligible article types include:
- Original research articles
- Review articles
- Rapid communications
- Brief reports
- Case studies
The following article types are not covered:
- Book reviews
- Editorials
- Introductions
- Announcements
- Meeting reports
- Abstracts
Journal eligibility
Eligible journals are:
- Hybrid journals. These are journals that charge a subscription fee, but publish some Open Access articles.
- Fully Open Access journals. These are journals that don't charge a subscription fee, and publish all articles Open Access.
- Research Open journals. These are like hybrid journals, but all research articles are published Open Access.
The following journals are not covered:
How to Access
- Declare your affiliation to BCU when submitting your article, ideally by including your ORCID.
- It's easiest for the Library to confirm your affiliation if you also use your BCU email address.
- When your article is accepted, CUP will contact you to fill in the author publishing agreement.
- Select Gold Open Access and a Creative Commons licence.
- CUP will then send the request to the Library's account for approval.
More Information
CUP has several resources to help you navigate this agreement:
- Step-by-step guide to publishing under a CUP Read & Publish deal.
- CUP Eligibility Checker confirms that you are covered by a deal and which journals are included.
- Webpage explaining the CUP Read & Publish deal.
- Definitions of article types and eligibility.
- Overview of Creative Commons licences.
Approaching the End of the Deal
This deal ends on 31st December 2025:
- Jisc (representing the UK higher education sector) are currently negotiating with CUP for a deal covering 2026 onwards.
- As of August 2025, CUP have not made an offer that the sector can vote on.
- If they do put forward an offer before the end of the year, it will be a national decision. Any outcome will depend on how the whole sector votes, not just BCU.
What this means for you right now:
- Articles only come to the Library dashboard for funding approval after they have been accepted by the journal editors. We recommend submitting your articles early enough for an acceptance date before 31st December.
- The library may not be able to approve funding for articles accepted after this date, depending on whether a deal is put forward and how the sector votes.
- If your article is accepted in a hybrid journal after this date, it can still be published for free behind a paywall.
- If your article is accepted in a fully-OA journal after this date, you will need to find an alternative source of funding or submit it to a different journal.
Please be aware of this upcoming deadline and check review timeframes when using this deal in 2025. We will keep the Next Gen OA page updated with the latest developments.