Cambridge University Press

About the Agreement

As of January 1st, 2023, BU Libraries has entered into a Read & Publish Transformative Open Access (OA) Agreement with Cambridge University Press (CUP). As part of this agreement, the Article Processing Charge (APC) is fully waived for all BU-affiliated authors publishing in CUP OA journals and hybrid journals with an OA option. BU institutional members also have access to all non-archival Cambridge University Press subscription journal content.

The list of journals included in this agreement is available on the Cambridge Journals Open access waivers and discounts page.

BU scholars can submit as many papers as they want for OA publishing.

Who is Eligible?

All BU scholars are eligible to have APC charges waived, provided that:

• The corresponding author of the manuscript is a BU scholar/affiliated with BU at the time of paper acceptance;
• The BU affiliation, address, and email is used for manuscript submission;
• The manuscript has been accepted for publication on or after January 1st, 2023.

Learn more about the Author Affiliations.

Article types not covered by transformative agreements

In general, the following article types are not eligible under a transformative agreement:

• Book reviews
• Discussions
• Editorials
• Introductions
• Letters
• Meeting reports
• Proceedings

Please refer to the agreement page for more information on article types covered by an agreement.

How to Apply

To apply for the Transformative OA Agreement benefit:

1. Visit Cambridge University Press open access waivers and discounts to find an OA journal or a hybrid journal with an OA option that you wish to submit your paper
2. On the journal page, click on the [Submit your article] button. Log in or create an account if you do not have one yet. Use your BU affiliation, address, and email for your account registration.
3. In the Author section, click on the [Begin Submission] button to start a new submission. Please ensure you have used the BU affiliation, address, and email for the manuscript submission.
4. If the article is accepted for publication, you will receive an acceptance email. If your article is accepted by a hybrid journal with an OA option, please choose “Gold Open Access” for the preferred access type.
5. Confirm the Creative Commons (CC) license under which the article should be published. Visit Creative Commons to learn more about CC Licenses, or, use the Creative Commons License Chooser tool.
6. After the publishing agreement is signed, if you are the corresponding author, you will receive an email from the Cambridge University Press RightsLink system requesting you to pay the APC, which will be waived by BU.
7. Register and log in to the RightsLink. You will see a notification about funding options. Select the “Seek Funding from Boston University” option. You should be automatically matched with BU-TA with CUP.
8. BU Libraries will be notified to verify and approve the APC fee waiver.

Learn more about the CUP agreement or view a recording of the Read & Publish Author Training webinar.

For any other questions please contact us at open-help@bu.edu.