Publish gold open access for free!

OK, so now I’ve got your attention, here are all the details you need to know to ensure that your research can be published gold open access completely free of charge. That’s right – nil, nada, rien, nothing!

Publishing open access is a great way of getting your research out there to those who need it, whether they are fellow academics, interested lay people, or government, charities, and other organisations. You may well find that publishing openly is part of your funding agreement, not to mention Cranfield’s open access policy. Work submitted to the REF must also be made available openly.

We have access to a growing list of ‘read and publish’ deals with key publishers such as Cambridge University Press, Institute of Physics, IWA Publishing, Royal Society of Chemistry, SAGE, Springer, Taylor & Francis and Wiley. These are often known as ‘transformational deals’, and they cover both Cranfield’s subscription to the journals (read) and Article Processing Charges (publish). This means that if there is a suitable journal for your article you can publish your paper gold open access free of charge.

We have created a web page which gives full details of each publisher’s offering, and I cannot emphasise enough the importance of reading the small print. This is because the deals are all slightly different – for example, Wiley’s scheme covers most hybrid titles (both gold and green papers appear in the journal) and fully gold titles (publish only gold articles in the journal), whereas Springer’s scheme covers only hybrid journal titles. If you are unsure whether your title is included, please contact your information specialist who will be happy to advise you.

To take advantage of the deal the corresponding author must use their Cranfield email address in the submission system and include their Cranfield affiliation on the paper itself. Springer, Wiley, and Taylor & Francis have all placed a ‘cap’ or limit on the number of articles that can be published gold without paying an APC. These limits are normally at a UK HE level, so we understand that this could make planning difficult. We have indicated whether a cap applies for each deal on our page, and we will update the details as soon as we are informed that limits are reached.

If you find it difficult to understand the complexities of these deals when all you want to do is get your amazing article out there, please contact your research support information specialist. We will do our utmost to provide you with all the support you need to take advantage of these deals. If you find yourself bamboozled by gold, green, deals, funder requirements, or anything else please contact us and we will go through it with you. You may find our open access web pages a useful introduction.

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