This is a hybrid journal, which means it provides authors with options to make their articles open access. General information about hybrid journals can be found in our hybrid open access FAQs. 

Gold Open Access 

In this journal authors can choose to publish their articles as Gold Open Access under a Creative Commons licence. This enables anyone to access and redistribute the content and, depending upon the licence, re-use the content in new or derivative works with attribution. The terms of re-use for Gold Open Access content are stated in the copyright line of the article. 

Gold Open Access in this journal is usually supported by an article processing charge (APC), typically paid by the author’s funding body or institution; please check the fees and pricing page for details of this journal's charges. 

Support for Gold Open Access

Cambridge has made open access agreements with over 2,000 institutions around the world to make Gold Open Access publication options available to authors. If the corresponding author of a research article is affiliated with one of these institutions, in the majority of cases these agreements will cover the full costs of publishing Gold Open Access (specific terms and conditions vary). Authors can use our eligibility checker to see if their institution has an active agreement.

The Cambridge Open Equity Initiative (COEI) also funds Gold Open Access publishing of research articles for authors from over 100 low- and middle-income countries, covering over 5,000 institutions. Eligibility is automatically established during the publication process and no Gold Open Access fees will be charged if the corresponding author of a research article is based in one of these countries.

In other cases an article processing charge (APC) will be required to cover the costs of publishing Gold Open Access in this journal. 

Authors should only choose Gold Open Access if they are certain they have a way to cover the costs of publication. For articles that are not published Gold Open Access, no fee is required.

Other routes to open access

Under this journal’s Green Open Access policy, authors can make pre-published versions of their articles available in institutional or other repositories, or on their personal or departmental websites, under certain conditions. This allows authors to comply with the open access mandates of many funders and institutions before the final article is published as Gold Open Access. For more information, please see Cambridge University Press’s Green Open Access policy page, where you can download a spreadsheet with full details about which versions of articles authors can post online, and where and when authors can post them.

If you have open access questions which are not answered by our policy pages and resources, please contact [email protected].

This journal follows Cambridge’s Green Open Access policy for scientific, technical and medical journals, which means an embargo of six months applies before authors can make accepted manuscripts available in non-commercial repositories. The embargo period starts from the date the article’s Version of Record is published online by Cambridge. 

This journal is registered with cOAlition S as a Transformative Journal, and articles subject to Plan S as a result of funding by cOAlition S should be published as Gold Open Access. This journal's Green Open Access policy does not meet the open access requirements of Plan S.

Social Sharing

This journal participates in Cambridge Core Share, an initiative that allows a read-only version of a final published PDF (the Version of Record) to be shared and easily accessed by anyone. Core Share links, and Core Share PDFs containing the links, can be freely shared on social media sites and scholarly collaboration networks to enhance both the impact and discoverability of research. 

Preprint policy

A preprint is an early version of an article prior to the version accepted for publication in a journal. This journal allows preprints to be posted anywhere at any time, including before submission to the journal. For more information, see the Cambridge University Press preprint policy.