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Our own Code of Ethics also sets out our belief that it is important that research is available and widely used and that we stand against censorship or restrictions imposed on our publications. For these reasons we will:
Where these commitments are challenged, we will pursue remedies which adhere to the key principles below:
We uphold the same high standards as our University, and expect research published by Cambridge University Press to abide by the principles within the University’s Research Integrity Statement . These principles cover:
In addition to the general principles above, we expect our journal editorial teams to provide specific guidelines and policies for authors on research integrity and ethics appropriate to their subject matter and discipline. Please refer to the Journal Policies page of the relevant journal for further details.
Anyone who believes that research published by Cambridge University Press has not been carried out in line with these Research Publishing Ethics Guidelines, or the above principles, should raise their concern with the relevant editor or email publishingethics@cambridge.org . Concerns will be addressed by following COPE guidelines where possible and/or by following our own internal escalation procedure if necessary.
We are committed to editorial independence, and strive in all cases to prevent this principle from being compromised through competing interests, fear, or any other corporate, business, financial or political influence. We believe editorial decisions on individual manuscripts should be based on scholarly merit and on potential importance to the community served by the journal.
We are committed to academic freedom. This is a fundamental principle for us as a university press. As a department of the University of Cambridge we are aligned to its position on freedom of speech .
Our core purpose is to support academic discourse through the quality, breadth and diversity of our publishing. Everything we publish is validated through a rigorous peer review process including oversight by the Academic Publishing Committee .
A central part of our mission is a commitment to pluralism in academic inquiry, including where this means engaging with viewpoints which are contested or controversial. We support respectful scholarly analysis and discourse, and we do not publish work that directly or intentionally incites violence, racism or other forms of discrimination and hatred.
Further detail on Cambridge University Press’ approach to publishing ethics can be viewed here. The University of Cambridge’s approach to freedom of speech can also be viewed online .
Our academic publishing programme is overseen by the Syndicate Academic Publishing Committee (SAPC) , consisting of academics from the University of Cambridge who independently approve Cambridge University Press taking on the publishing of an established journal or the creation of a new journal. The SAPC approves the appointment of individual editors and editorial board members to our Syndicate journals. The SAPC may also advise on policy changes, ethics or other matters affecting the conduct of our journals’ business, but SAPC responsibilities do not include decisions to publish individual articles.
Editorial decisions on manuscripts submitted to our journals are made by external academic editors and consider independent peer review reports, in line with the journal’s stated peer review policy.
We encourage all journals to provide a public policy and process for considering appeals of editorial decisions. Please refer to the ‘Submitting your materials’ page of the relevant journal for further details. If you have concerns and wish to appeal or file a complaint, please contact publishingethics@cambridge.org , or the relevant journal contact as outlined in that journal’s appeals process. It is the journal’s responsibility to disclose the journal policy and ensure it is implemented by any guest or special issue editors.
We do not discriminate against authors, editors or peer reviewers based on personal characteristics or identity. We are committed to promoting equality, embedding diversity and removing barriers to inclusion at every stage of our publishing process. We actively seek and encourage submissions from scholars of diverse backgrounds, including race and ethnicity, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, and disability. Editorial decisions on individual manuscripts should be based on scholarly merit, and should not be affected by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, political beliefs, religion, or identity of the authors.
We recognise the right for people to be treated with respect and dignity and we do not tolerate any form of harassment, abusive behaviour or correspondence towards our staff and others involved in the publishing process on our behalf. If anyone involved in this process engages in such behaviour we have the right to take action to protect others from this abuse. This may include, for example, withdrawal of a manuscript from consideration, or challenging clearly abusive peer review comments.
Peer review is critical to maintaining the standards of our publications. We:
We expect reviewers to uphold the confidentiality of the review process, as described by the journal. Unless otherwise specified by or agreed with the journal, this means the reviewer must not share the content for review with any other person, public platform, or AI tool. Any breach of confidentiality will be considered peer review misconduct, and may be reported to the reviewer’s institution.
In journals that allow co-reviewing, an invited reviewer can work with a more junior colleague to review a manuscript for the purpose of reviewer training. This allows the co-reviewer to gain experience with the review process. Invited reviewers must declare any co-reviewers to the journal in advance of sharing the manuscript, and co-reviewers must declare any relevant competing interests. Further details on individual journals’ co-reviewing requirements can be found on the journal’s information and policy pages.
Unless entered into a written agreement otherwise, reviews are the intellectual property of reviewers. We encourage all those involved in the editorial process to familiarise themselves with the COPE Guidelines on Editing of Peer Reviews . Where breaches of the following policy are suspected, authors/reviewers should raise their concerns through the appeals/complaints process for that publication, or to publishingethics@cambridge.org We expect all our journals to have a stated policy on the editing of peer reviews, including whether reviews may be edited (and, if so, under what circumstances). The journal’s policy should be clearly communicated to authors and reviewers.
We strive to follow COPE’s Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing and encourage our publishing partners to uphold these same principles.
We maintain a record of the existence of everything we publish with information (metadata) describing each publication. If our content is deemed not to comply with the laws of a sovereign nation, we make every effort to ensure the metadata remain accessible within that jurisdiction.
We use the following definitions for article versions:
but any editorially significant changes to a published AM will fall under our Post-publication notices, changes and discussions policy.
VoRs are intended to be permanent, definitive, final versions of the article and should remain ‘extant, exact, and unaltered to the maximum extent possible’.Any post-publication change, where necessary, will therefore be carried out with maximum possible transparency. For further information, please see our Post-publication notices, changes and discussions policy.
We apply these same principles to our marketing, and do not modify or manipulate the representation of the academic record in our marketing activities.
When any product (chapter, article, book, Element or journal) is purchased or subscribed to, we supply it only in its totality to the customer, who is not entitled to alter its content in any way that is inconsistent with the licensing terms under which it was published. Any sale of disaggregated products is subject to the contracts with the copyright holders of the original products.