Before Cambridge can publish a journal article (or any other journal content), we need a signed licence to publish agreement. Under the agreement, certain rights are granted to the journal owner which allow publication of the article. The original ownership of the copyright in the article remains unchanged.

If your article is accepted for publication, the corresponding author will receive an email from “Cambridge University Press via Ironclad” ([email protected])* asking them to complete an Information Request Form (IRF). Ironclad is our digital contract management platform and the information submitted via the IRF will determine the terms and conditions under which the article will be published. The IRF will also seek to confirm who will sign the agreement (it is usually, but not always, the corresponding author who will sign).

The IRF will ask you to grant an exclusive licence to publish, so that we have the necessary rights to publish your article. An exclusive licence means that the rights needed to publish the paper are granted to the journal owner on an exclusive basis, while the ownership of the copyright remains unchanged. In order to complete your IRF, you should ascertain in advance:

• the requirements of your funders or institutions, who may have their own conditions for publications derived from their support;
• who owns the copyright in your article. This is usually either the author(s) or their employer(s). In some cases the employer(s) may be governmental or other entities for whom special copyright conditions apply.

If you are not sure who owns the copyright in your article, it’s a good idea to check your employment contract or speak with your employer about copyright ownership of content you have produced during the course of your employment.

Authors should also ensure that they have all appropriate permissions for third-party material used in their article.

Once the IRF is completed, the signer will receive an email from [email protected]*. Cambridge manages its publishing agreements using Ironclad and third-party software to collect digital signatures.

Please note that an article cannot proceed to Cambridge Production without a completed agreement.

* Messages regarding the publishing agreement might get blocked by mail filtering software and it may be helpful to add them to your ‘safe sender’ list or equivalent (or ask your IT Department to do so). If your manuscript has been accepted and you have not received emails from these addresses concerning the author publishing agreement please contact [email protected].

Frequently asked questions about the publishing agreement process, as well as examples of the kind of publishing agreement you will be asked to sign, can be found in our publishing agreement FAQs. If you have any queries about the licensing terms and conditions, please contact [email protected].

Following publication, the ways in which your article can be accessed and re-used will depend on a number of factors. Please consult this journal’s Green OA policy for more information about the rights you retain, and how you may share different versions of your article.