Why Open Institutional Publishing Matters

Why Open Institutional Publishing Matters

Philippa Grand, Press Manager, University of Westminster Press and Suzanne Tatham, Associate Director, University of Sussex Library

Institutionally-based academic publishing in the UK has a long and illustrious history, with the first such presses founded in 1534 and 1586 at Cambridge and Oxford Universities respectively.  But generally speaking, university press publishing in the UK has had a chequered history.  While the ‘Mid-Sized Five’ – Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, and Wales – are exemplary, thriving examples of this sector of academic publishing, the idea of university-based publishing has gone in and out of fashion over the decades. This is in marked contrast to the USA, where there are over 85 university presses, and publishing is seen as part of the core activities of their home institutions – as essential as a library or a lecture theatre.

But over the past 10 years, things have started to change. With the coming of digital publishing and new technologies, the rise of open research and increasing demand for open access (not least as mandated by funders), and with increasing awareness and criticism of the profiteering of commercial publishing, institutionally-based publishing is making a long-overdue comeback.

A new wave of institutional publishers – including UCL Press, LSE Press, Goldsmiths Press, Edinburgh Diamond, Open Press at the University of Sussex, Scottish Universities Press, White Rose University Press, University of London Press, University of Huddersfield Press and University of Westminster Press – are leading the way in offering alternative publishing venues to authors and driving change in scholarly communications.

In fact, this sector is growing at such a pace that in 2023 a group of these presses came together to form the Open Institutional Publishing Association (OIPA) to help represent and promote these presses to a broader audience and create an important new UK publishing network.

This group includes publishers who are ‘born’ open access – i.e., only publish in this way – those transitioning to, or striving for, a fully open access model, and those with a hybrid model, who publish non-OA work too. It also includes a range of different types of publisher – from a traditional university press set-up to library publishers and open journals service providers – and different approaches to open access, from diamond, to gold, to green. 

But what unites this new breed of publishers? What can open institutional (OI) publishing offer, how is it making a difference and why does it matter? This OA Week, here are 13 reasons why this sector is one to watch:

1. Nonprofit, community-led and mission driven: OI publishers are proudly nonprofit enterprises and place the highest value on intellectual quality and the scholarly endeavour not commercial opportunity. As Anthony Cond, CEO of Liverpool University Press has noted, ‘if a university press differs from a commercial publisher it is above all in the fact that it takes nothing out of its community; there is but one shareholder, one which exists, like a university press, to serve knowledge and one which by having a press does just that’. 
2. Bibliodiversity: In recent years the academic publishing landscape has narrowed as the largest publishing conglomerates have acquired smaller presses and consolidated their hold over the industry. Worldwide revenue of academic publishers stands at over $19 billion per year and 50% of that is attributed to just five companies. But we need bibliodiversity to ensure intellectual freedom, reader and author choice, innovation, and to create a vibrant, diverse and inclusive publishing ecosystem. The growth of small-scale OI publishing contributes to this, and – following important work by the COPIM project and the ScholarLed consortium, amongst others – we exemplify a ‘scaling small’ approach that is in diametric opposition to the commercial sector.
3. Innovation: OI publishers can contribute to creating a scholarly communications environment that encourages innovation and provides opportunities for experimenting with different types of scholarship including non-traditional and novel formats. Legacy publishers may not be able to take such risks whereas institutional publishing creates space for authors to redefine what a scholarly output is, and what counts as scholarship – to experiment with the very shape that knowledge takes. Within OIPA, Goldsmiths Press are forerunners here.
4. Flexibility in formats: OI publishers can often offer authors more flexibility with publishing models and formats, unlike the often ‘templated’ and streamlined models used by many commercial publishers. Open institutional publishers frequently work in creative partnerships with authors across a diverse range of formats, including textbooks and open educational resources, policy briefs, books in translation, shortform titles, journals and more, giving authors more choice in how they communicate with their readers. This also includes an interest in epistemic diversity and willingness to experiment with the traditional forms that knowledge takes.
5. Equity, diversity and inclusion: OIs can help to create a publishing system that is globally accessible and equitable by offering different business models that can provide a route to open access publishing for non-funded authors, scholars based at less affluent institutions or with limited resources, and those based in the majority world, for whom book and article processing charges may not be affordable. OI presses use a variety of approaches to funding OA including diamond and green models, and where publishing fees are required these are typically significantly lower than commercial presses, or may be partially funded.
6. Arts, humanities and social sciences: OI publishing helps champions non-scientific research ensuring that openness is not just the preserve of STEM subjects. University of London Press specifically supports the humanities, while LSE Press focuses solely on social sciences. Others Presses, like University of Huddersfield Press’s focus on music, champion specific fields. OIPA members are publishing in STEM fields too – see LSHTM Press and the publications of Liverpool John Moores University’s Open Journals Service.
7. Prestige and value: OI presses can help to shift institutional culture around publishing and redefine problematic views of prestige. Bringing publishing expertise back into the institutional fold provides authors with a trusted brand (i.e., their university) alongside onsite guidance and advice. This, along with a thorough two-stage peer review process that aligns with AUPresses Best Practices, Editorial Boards that provide oversight of press activities, and prestigious awards, prize shortlists and rave journal reviews (for just a few examples see here, here, here, here and here), provides assurance that this is not an institutional form of self-publishing.
8. Global reach: OI publications have a worldwide audience and have been accessed in countries and territories across the globe – everywhere from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Our open access publications are available to access without barriers or paywalls to anyone with an internet connection.
9. The open access ‘advantage’: OI press publications benefit from the many advantages that open access publishing has shown to provide in comparison with non-OA content.  This includes greater usage, higher citations, increased sharing and better Altmetric scores. OA publications have a greater geographical diversity of usage, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, and a greater diversity of citations, including by fields of research. And it’s been shown that OA content is being increasingly accessed and used by groups outside academia. The transparency of openness allows for greater scrutiny, verification and reproducibility of scientific results and is seen as a way to counter the epidemic of misinformation and fake news (see here, here, here, here, here and here for a snapshot of research on the benefits of OA publishing).
10. Sustainable Development Goals: OI publishers help universities in their commitment to address the Sustainable Development Goals. Not only do we help make it easier to access research on key SDG challenges – and as Monica Granados, Assistant Director, Open Climate at Creative Commons, noted at the 2023 UN Open Science Conference, “we cannot hope to solve the SDGs if the knowledge about them is not open” –  we help our home institutions fulfil SDG Target 16.10 in ensuring “public access to information”. See also this fascinating webinar by Fiona Bradley from University of New South Wales on the role libraries played in defining the SDGs.
11. Author care: OI publishers want to restore notions of author care within academic publishing, for example by providing a useful, constructive peer review process, ensuring a high-quality production service and bespoke book cover designs, and seeing publishing as a collaboration and a partnership. Based within institutions, we are better able to understand our authors needs and concerns and, in turn, help them by demystifying the publishing process – in particular for PhD students and early career researchers (see in particular the excellent work of University of London Press here). Legacy publishers have moved away from promotion of their publications, yet OI presses like LSE Press are now reclaiming this as a core activity.
12. Rights retention: OI publishers typically allow authors to retain copyright in their work and publish under Creative Commons licences that allow for sharing and reuse, further enhancing the reach and impact of their publications, aligning us with the growing Rights Retention movement within universities.
13. Part of a movement: OI publishers stand alongside scholar-led publishers in seeking to bring about a change in academic publishing and offer alternatives to what many have described as a broken system. In championing principles and ethics in publishing over revenue generation and profits – in putting values above value – OI publishers look to build a fair, equitable, accessible, inclusive and diverse publishing ecosystem, one that is known for high quality publications, for author care, and for opening up research to authors and readers, as well as to innovation and experimentation in publishing too.