Guidance on publishing preprints

Preprints service

From 11th March 2024, the University will provide a preprints deposit service, which facilitates the deposits of preprints into the University’s Institutional Open Access Repository, Apollo.   

Apollo is underpinned by DSpace, a widely adopted open-source repository platform. Apollo is a CoreTrustSeal certified repository, and as such it provides long-term digital preservation, persistent identifiers for the outputs it holds (PIDs) and machine-readable metadata, and therefore it provides a reliable and sustainable option for our researchers.  

The preprint service has been developed to serve the needs of University of Cambridge researchers who:

1. Do not have an appropriate subject repository, or
2. Who have concerns about the sustainability of the available subject repositories, or
3. Who wish to deposit their preprints into Apollo instead of using the available subject repositories.

Please note that unless a researcher has concerns about the sustainability of the available subject repository as outlined above, the preprint service will not duplicate preprints that have been published elsewhere. Nor would it be used in cases where a later version of the paper already exists in Apollo, or where the version of record is already available. 

We have developed a Preprint Checker Tool, available below, which provides an overview of the main subject repositories and indicates whether they meet critical criteria set out by the Directory of Open Access Preprint Repositories.

Preprint Checker Tool

The Preprint Checker Tool is designed to assist researchers in selecting a suitable preprint server for their discipline. It provides information on critical criteria relating to a repository’s sustainability, support for FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable) and support for open/community-based infrastructures. The main criteria to help choosing an appropriate and sustainable preprint server are, that at a minimum, the server:

• Assigns persistent identifiers for the content it holds. These identifiers are usually in the form of DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers). PIDs ensure that your output can be properly cited and accessed.
• Has a preservation policy, or information available regarding its commitment to provide long-term preservation and access of its content.
• Has governance in place and information about its business / funding model is available.

Search the tool