Within the scope of the EKUAL Project conducted by TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM, a new “Read & Publish” agreement has been signed with Cambridge University Press (CUP) covering the 2026–2028 period. The agreement supports both access to academic content and the publication of Open Access (OA) articles.
The details and implementation principles of the agreement are provided below.
Scope and Duration of the Agreement
- The agreement is valid for three years, from January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2028.
- All EKUAL member institutions in Türkiye will continue to have access to the Cambridge Journals Online (CJO) “Full Collection.”
- In addition, under this agreement, the right to publish Open Access (OA) articles within the CJO “Full Collection” is provided without any quota limitations.
TÜBİTAK OA Publishing Support and Eligibility Criteria
In order for corresponding authors to publish their articles as Open Access without paying an Article Processing Charge (APC), the following criteria must be met:
- The corresponding author must be an authorized user affiliated with an EKUAL member institution.
- Authors are strongly advised to use their institutional email addresses during submission. The use of personal email accounts (e.g., Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) may delay the verification process.
- The agreement applies to all EKUAL member institutions.
- The agreement covers unlimited OA article publishing in both hybrid journals and fully gold Open Access journals.
Retrospective Open Access Conversion
The rules regarding retrospective Open Access conversion under the agreement are as follows:
- Publications in Hybrid Journals: Articles published as “closed access” in hybrid journals between January 1, 2026 and the agreement signing date (February 16, 2026) may be converted to Open Access without any additional charge, upon request of the author(s) (notification must be sent to ukg@ulakbim.gov.tr) and subject to the approval of TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM. No refunds will be made for articles in hybrid journals that were already published as Open Access with an APC payment.
- Publications in Fully Open Access Journals: No refunds will be provided for APC payments made for articles published in fully gold Open Access journals between January 1, 2026 and February 16, 2026.
- General Conversion Right: During the agreement period, articles published as “closed access” in hybrid journals may be converted to Open Access within the same publication year, provided that the request is made within three months of publication.
For the updated journal list, application guidelines, and training materials, please visit the TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM EKUAL webpage.
Note: If APC support has been inadvertently granted during the period in which an author is listed on the TÜBİTAK AYEK Sanctions List or on the list of individuals whose professional practice rights have been revoked or temporarily suspended by the Ministry of Health, or if an article for which APC support has been provided is subsequently retracted, the corresponding author and/or co-authors are required to notify ukg@ulakbim.gov.tr and reimburse the APC amount to TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM. Otherwise, ULAKBİM reserves the right to recover the APC amount from the Corresponding Author.