UMass Amherst Joins Cambridge University Press “Read and Publish” Agreement

UMass Amherst authors now can publish open access articles free of charge under a new agreement with Cambridge University Press (CUP). In addition, campus community members have access to more than 380 journals under this agreement. In January, the UMass Amherst Libraries joined North East Research Libraries Consortium (NERL) in a Cambridge University Press Read and Publish Agreement.  Research from NERL members accounts for over 25 percent of Cambridge’s U.S. originated output, and this agreement ensures a new and significant portion of research in Cambridge journals can now be published open access.

Open access publication has benefits for authors who reach more readers and retain their copyright, and benefits for readers who can use more scholarship without cost. To have an open access publishing fee covered, a UMass Amherst scholar must be the corresponding author of an accepted manuscript of original research in an open access journal. In addition, UMass Amherst community members have read access to all Cambridge University Press journals.

Mathematics and Statistics Professor Alexei Oblomkov is the first UMass Amherst author to benefit from the CUP agreement. His article, “Virasoro constraints for stable pairs on toric 3 –folds,” was recently accepted by Forum of Mathematics, Pi.

“This journal is becoming the most prestigious journal in pure mathematics,” says Oblomkov. “Leaders in the field publish their most influential work in the journal, in part to promote open access and in part for its strict refereeing process. It is fantastic that UMass now supports authors publishing with this journal.”

The Libraries are working to facilitate participation in high quality open scholarship for faculty and students through provider agreements using different funding models. The CUP agreement is the first of its kind the Libraries have signed with a traditional subscription-based publisher that funds open access scholarship, with no financial burden on either reader or author. In this model, researchers and scholars are excluded from fee-free publishing or access if they are not affiliated with an institution or funder that can pay on their behalf. To address this, CUP has declared its intent to make all of its journals open access by 2025, and it participates in the Research4Life initiative to subvent open access publishing fees for those from less economically developed countries for whom paying them is a barrier to publication. CUP is a good match with the Libraries’ Framework for Provider Agreements, which was adopted by the Libraries in February 2021.

For more information about publishing under this agreement or participating in open scholarship, contact Christine Turner, Scholarly Communication Librarian.