What about paying Open Access charges (APCs)?

The University does not have a central institutional fund to pay Open Access charges.

In many cases you can comply with REF Open Access requirements without paying a fee. The REF Open Access Policy allows authors to respect embargo periods set by publishers, as long as the embargo length does not exceed 12 months for Main Panels A and B; and 24 months for Main Panels C and D. This means that, where a publisher specifies an embargo period within those limits, your can comply with the REF Open Access policy by taking the free, 'Green' open access route (depositing your accepted manuscript in our institutional repository).

The University receives block grants from British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, RCUK/UKRI and Wellcome Trust to support their Open Access policies for eligible papers.

Authors should upload the accepted manuscript to us via Symplectic Elements as soon as possible, taking care to indicate any source of funding acknowledged in the paper. We will then let you know if your paper is eligible for these funds.

It is important that you contact us and gain our agreement to pay Open Access fees before selecting an Open Access option from your publisher. The conditions on our block grants are quite complex and also change over time, so authors should not assume that an Open Access fee will be paid by us. The University also has some arrangements with some publishers which gives us discounts to the article processing charges (APCs).

RCUK includes:

• AHRC
• BBSRC
• EPSRC
• ESRC
• MRC
• NERC
• STFC

Funders other than the block grant providers may have Open Access policies, some of which can only be met using a paid option - we can advise you on some of these other policies.

ERC-funded papers: we are aware that the ERC guidance mentions that the host institution should be able to cover open access fees after the end of a project - unfortunately the ERC has not provided us with any dedicated fund to pay for open access fees of ERC-funded researchers.

The current University of Cambridge funding guidelines can be read here. If you have any other queries please contact us.