Accessing the University of Cambridge's block grants

The University of Cambridge receives block grants to pay article processing charges (APCs) from British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, UKRI/RCUK (AHRC, BBSRC, ESRC, EPSRC, NERC, STFC. Research England and Innovate UK are covered provided in certain circumstances outlined in UKRI's Open Access Policy ) and Wellcome Trust. We are unable to cover the cost of other publishing fees (such as page or colour charges). 

The conditions for paying the APC are outlined in the flowchart 'Will the OA Team pay my APC' in our Open Access Publishing Resources page.

Funder specific journal and article type eligibility 

A note on research grants 

The Open Access Team can only pay open access charges in cases where a paper acknowledges a specific research grant.  

Cancer Research UK also permits the Team to pay charges where the paper acknowledges a Cambridge CRUK Centre core grant (but not a Cambridge CRUK Institute core grant).

We are currently unable to pay fees where the only grant acknowledged in the paper is a MRC Unit/Institute core grant.  

 A note on Transformative Journals 

Transformative journals are a status that Coalition S and UKRI have given to hybrid journals that fulfil a set of criteria. They are not recognised by BHF and CRUK.  

Please note that both hybrid and transformative journals will only be supported while the block grants are above a 30% threshold. This is to ensure that authors publishing in fully open access journals can continue to be supported.  

A note on review articles 

Cochrane Reviews and meta-analyses are included by CRUK and Wellcome Trust in their definition of original research. These are the only types of review articles that are supported by CRUK and Wellcome Trust. APCs for other review articles funded by CRUK and Wellcome Trust will not be paid by the open access team.

UKRI's policy does cover review articles, although narrative review articles are explicitly excluded.