Talk on the motivations, challenges, and innovations on New University Presses in the UK.

1. New University Presses
Motivations, Challenges and Innovations
Lisa Walton
@lisawalton87
lisa@veruscript.com

2. New vs. Old – Common Features
New
Digitally Led
Usually Open Access
Focus on serving institutions researchers
Low or No APC / BPCs
Library based / Librarian driven
Smaller set of services
Old
Print born
Mixed Model (Some OA)
Focus on making a return for their institution
Often separate from library / librarians
APCs levied at market rates
Wide ranging services

3. Motivations

4. Visibility and Impact
• Provide venues for research that would not be published
• Raise profile of authors
• Give students an outlet
• Allow practitioners and industry workers to access articles
• Improve and promote institutions brand

5. Reaction to Environment
• The opportunity is there where it wasn’t previously
• Can make it very cost-effective
• Funder Mandates / REF
• Movement of librarians into Scholarly Communication
• Expertise in dealing with repositories and grey
literature

6. Reaction to Environment
• A response to publishers’ responses to OA
• High APCs
• Monograph crisis
• Reaction to hybrids
• Move centre of power away from the big 5

7. Support
• Existing publishing programs
• Build expertise of ECRs / students
• Centralise support for department journals
• University mission
• Departments developing research (previously focusing on
teaching)
• Develop OA publishing

8. Challenges

9. Resourcing
• Getting buy in from higher management
• Time
• Money
• Support
• Information

10. Implementation
• Technology systems not designed for publishing
• Plugging into existing scholarly communication
infrastructure
• Marketing and profile raising
• Preservation, data protection and security

11. Results

12. UK University Presses
• From June 2015 to June 2016 5 NUPs launched1
• Now 19 NUPs in the UK
• 12 more institutions considering launching
• 4 more have expressed an interest
1 | Locket & Speicher, 2016, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/leap.1049/full

13. Outputs
• The majority publish both Journals and Monographs, outputs also include
textbooks, music and data
• Formats available include PDFs, HTML, XML, ePUB and Print
• Licenses available include CC BY and CC BY-NC-ND
• Dissemination routes include DOAJ, Institutional Repositories, Amazon /
sales platforms, DOAB, OAPEN

14. Innovations
• UCL Press – largest NUP, 6 staff, publishes journals, monographs, textbooks. Has dedicated pot of
money to cover publication charges.
• White Rose Press - Coalition press, created by Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York. Monographs
and journals, with first books due out soon.
• University of Huddersfield Press – one of the first NUPs, built own systems on top of eprints software.
Publishes student journal FIELDS, and music.
• Goldsmiths Press – publishes monographs and non-standard outputs including apps and video
archives.

15. References & Further Resources
• New university presses in the UK: Accessing a mission, Locket & Speicher,
2016, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/leap.1049/full
• Changing publishing Ecologies, Graham Stone, 2017,
http://repository.jisc.ac.uk/6666/1/Changing-publishing-ecologies-report.pdf
• Learned Publishing, Special Issue: The University Press Redux,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/leap.2016.29.issue-S1/issuetoc
• University Press Redux conference – http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/ucl-press-
news/university-press-redux-conference-2018
• Veruscript Publishing 101 - https://news.veruscript.com/publishing101/home