Academics from 107 low- and middle-income countries will be able to publish their research open access in Cambridge journals at no cost to them.
(11 Apr 2023) 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 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.
The press release in full is here.
Asian countries eligible for this initiative are: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam.
