Negotiations are taking place to establish new agreements for 2026 with five of the major journal publishers – Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and Sage. The outcome of these negotiations may affect how you read and publish research, and we want to hear from you.
Find out more about what’s happening, what we’re asking for and why, and let us know your views.
All welcome. The views of the University’s academic and research community at all levels are vital.
For more information, visit our webpage, which will be kept up to date throughout the process.
The University of Cambridge has a subscription to SpringerMaterials. This gives you and your colleagues access to the largest curated materials science database in the world, covering 300,000+ materials and 3,000+ physical and chemical properties in a single platform.
About SpringerMaterials
As the amount of scientific information exponentially increases, we understand the need to find relevant, reliable, critically evaluated data on-demand.
SpringerMaterials is the largest curated materials science database in the world, delivering fast, trusted content at your fingertips with 300,000+ materials and 3,000+ properties in a single platform.
SpringerMaterials provides consolidated, multi-source data from all major topics in materials science, chemistry, physics and engineering.
By using SpringerMaterials you will:
To find out more about the platform, you can view this video. It shows you what makes SpringerMaterials unique, and how it can help your research.
If you need to look something up we recommend Access Engineering to quickly find the answer you need. It searches the latest edition of engineering handbooks and textbooks, and will take you directly to the relevant chapter or paragraph. For some topics you'll also find step-by-step videos and solution walkthroughs.
Access via the Cambridge subscription: https://www-accessengineeringlibrary-com.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/
One of our key aims is to support you beyond your studies and research, so we are also keen to point you in the direction of our free online collections and electronic databases to help you make the most of your time at Cambridge. To compliment these e-resources, our libraries also have borrowable print collections that you can take advantage of. If you have any questions, please contact us or ask your librarian.
The Technology Libraries Team at the Engineering Department & West Hub are pleased to announce our new open training programme for the Lent Term.
For sessions running at the Engineering Department, booking is required and are open to members of the University of Cambridge only. For sessions running at the West Hub, booking is not essential and are open to all.
This session is ideal for anyone new to coding, as well as those looking to choose a programming language for their next project. Visit our Open Programme pages to secure your spot.
Join our live, interactive session to learn how to design, edit, and present an academic poster like a pro! Ask questions in real-time. Visit our Open Programme pages to secure your spot.
Join our live, interactive session to learn how to design and edit slides and present like a pro! Ask questions in real-time. Visit our Open Programme pages to secure your spot.
Apollo, the place for your researchIt is now possible to make open access, research data and doctoral thesis deposits into Apollo from Elements.
A new preprints deposit service is also available. You can now use Elements to deposit preprints in Apollo:
Please do not deposit preprints that have already been published on a subject repository/preprint server unless you have concerns about long-term preservation. See the Open access website for guidance on publishing preprints, including a preprint checker tool to help you select a suitable preprint server for your discipline. See the Unlocking Research blog post for more information.
The University launched a Self-Archiving Policy on 1 April 2023, following the year-long Rights Retention Pilot.
The policy gives Cambridge researchers a cost-effective route to make the accepted version of their papers open access without embargo – something that is now required by almost all research funders. It applies to all peer-reviewed research articles submitted after 1 April 2023, including reviews and conference papers.
One key difference between the new Self-Archiving Policy and the previous Rights Retention Pilot is that it is opt-out rather than opt-in.
This means that all researchers must either:
Before submission, ensure that your co-authors agree to apply a CC BY licence to the accepted manuscript. Alternative licences are permitted providing they are in line with funder requirements.
It is advisable to include the following sentence in your article’s financial disclosure or acknowledgements section: “For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission”. This ensures that the publisher is aware of your intention to retain the right to distribute the accepted manuscript.
On acceptance, deposit your article into the repository through Symplectic Elements.
Researchers can include any preference for an alternative Creative Commons licence using the options provided.
Email info@openaccess.cam.ac.uk stating your intention to opt out. When depositing papers into the repository through Symplectic Elements, it is your responsibility to inform us that you are opting out by using fields provided in the form.
More information about the new policy can be found at https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/stories/self-archiving-policy
Guidance and FAQs are available at https://www.openaccess.cam.ac.uk/publishing-open-access/self-archiving-policy-guidance
The University of Cambridge now subscribes to Overton, app.overton.io., the world’s largest searchable index of policy documents and their relationships with research, people and each other.
Overton can be used as:
It’s like Google for government reports, think tank publications, white papers and other policy documents. You can structure and/or limit a search by topic, country or geographical region, source type, document type and year. This highly focused filtering helps surface outputs from smaller organisations or geographical areas that are often deprioritised in a regular search process.
Citation reports and dashboards are specifically designed to help with research impact assessment. Search by publication, author or institution to find where your research has been cited or mentioned in policy worldwide. Use as evidence of research impact in grant applications, evaluations and creating case studies. Save your searches and set alerts to be notified of any new mentions/citations.
The past few years have seen growing calls to improve collaboration between researchers and policymakers - for governments to be clearer about where their knowledge gaps are and to lower the barriers for researchers to engage with them. Overton can be used to understand the policy landscape in your area and to identify opportunities to engage and influence policy, e.g. by finding evidence gaps identified by policy organisations or learning about the pathways of influence in your field. See Overton’s guide to impact planning.
Learn more about Overton and how to get the most out of it via its knowledge base and find out about the latest developments on the platform via Overton's blog.
If you’d like to discuss a particular use case or to arrange a demo for your group contact techlib@lib.cam.ac.uk.