Celebrating 10 Years of UCL Press

Lara Speicher, Head of Publishing at UCL Press, joins us to celebrate 10 years of award-winning open access publishing

Tell us about the origins of UCL Press and the milestone you are celebrating

This month (June 2025), we are delighted to celebrate 10 years since the launch of UCL Press and to announce that we have reached the milestone of 20 million downloads worldwide for our books and journals.

When UCL Press launched in 2015, it was the first fully open access university press in the UK. The idea for the Press came from Dr Paul Ayris, Pro Vice Provost for UCL LCCOS (Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science), CEO of UCL Press and longtime champion of Open Science. Noting that UCL did not have an active university press (the original imprint having passed to a commercial publisher some years before), Dr Ayris saw an opportunity not only to start a university press for the institution, to bring UCL’s groundbreaking research to the world, but also to launch with an innovative open access model, the first UK university to do so, reflecting UCL’s own pioneering history and adding to the many other ‘firsts’ that UCL can claim.

What was it like to help establish UCL Press from the ground up, and how was the new open access model received?

I joined UCL in 2013 after working in publishing for many years, and worked closely with Paul Ayris and Martin Moyle, Director of Services, UCL LCCOS, to establish the Press from scratch. While it was certainly daunting not only to set up a university press but also to do so using a relatively new business model and to undertake this at a university as prestigious as UCL, support for the concept, launch and growth of UCL Press has been overwhelmingly positive from day one. UCL is an inspiring place to work, with innovation, dedication and collegiality to be found in every conversation.

What were some of the early publications that helped define UCL Press’s identity, and how has the publishing programme evolved over the past decade?

The first proposals we received included:

a groundbreaking series on social media, featuring 13 books describing research undertaken in various countries around the world from Prof Daniel Miller (UCL Anthropology) and his team
a collection of essays by renowned historian Prof Lisa Jardine, Temptation in the Archives; a volume exploring how empire in Asia shaped British country houses edited by Prof Margot Finn, Chair in British History, UCL, and Dr Kate Smith (Birmingham)
a volume on suburbs and the life of the high street edited by Prof Laura Vaughan, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL
and a study of web archives edited by Prof Ralph Schroeder (Oxford) and Prof Niels Brugger (Aarhus).

Also among our early publications were books in the fields of cultural heritage, conservation and museums, including a book about the collections of the Petrie Museum of Egyptology at UCL. Among our early journals were The London Journal of Canadian Studies, Architecture MPS, the Journal of Bentham Studies and Jewish Historical Studies.

These early publications, by both established scholars and ECRs, from UCL and beyond, helped to shape the profile of UCL Press and heralded the start of what are now thriving lists in the fields of Anthropology, Architecture and Urban Studies, Archaeology, Heritage and Museum studies, and History.

Other key areas that have emerged include Sustainability, Modern Languages, Law, History of Science and Political Science. When the Press merged with UCL IOE Press (Institute of Education) in 2019, it took on the five open access education journals established by IOE Press. It also benefited from the expertise of the staff that moved to UCL Press as well as an existing author base, enabling UCL Press to develop an OA book publishing programme in Education, which is now another significant list. And in 2023 the Press started a dedicated open access textbooks programme to provide students with free, high-quality educational resources, a programme that has seen significant take-up from authors as well as global course adoptions for the first round of textbooks published.

How has UCL Press grown since its launch, and what does its global reach and impact look like today?

Since launching in 2015, UCL Press has published over 400 scholarly monographs, 11 textbooks and built a portfolio of 15 journals and 18 active book series, and every year it now publishes around 60 scholarly books, 4 student textbooks and 200 journal articles.

UCL Press authors come not only from UCL but from other institutions in the UK and around the world – our programme features authors from all five continents, as does our subject coverage.

Our readership is similarly global in nature, with over 20 million downloads in 242 countries and territories around the world at the time of writing. Our books have won or been shortlisted for a number of awards and are frequently reviewed in both specialist publications and national and international media.

How is UCL Press funded, and what challenges and opportunities does it face in sustaining and growing its open access publishing model?

UCL Press is largely funded by UCL to deliver global impact for its own research and that of other scholars, aligning with UCL’s commitment to an open science future and its mission to be a force for good in the world. The Press also has funding streams from sales of print copies, Book Processing Charges (made to non-UCL authors) and consultancy.

UCL Press provides a high level of publishing service for its authors and sees this as critical to running a successful university press. The Press receives many proposals for both books and new journals every month and based on this level of demand, the Press could easily continue to grow. However, with the significant level of competing priorities that universities have to contend with, it is not possible to expect UCL or any other university to continue to increase its funding for OA publishing indefinitely, and we are therefore working with other community funding schemes to address this challenge and to enable the Press to increase the number of authors and editors it can work with in future.

What impact does open access publishing through UCL Press have on authors and readers, and what kind of feedback do you receive from your authors?

Our authors are central to everything we do and working with them to bring their books and journals to the world is a source of immense pride. We are publishing work that really matters, that benefits society and opens minds, and the fact that our publications can be accessed freely by anyone in the world with an internet connection, means that the benefit is multiplied by the millions.

Our free, digital publications are reaching corners of the world where scholarly publications and student textbooks are otherwise inaccessible or unaffordable and they are also reaching those who are the subjects of research, particularly in fields such as Anthropology, or who have participated in community studies.

Our authors tell us that they value their experience of publishing with the Press, both in terms of the friendly, collaborative and personal service they receive and because of the extensive global reach that their books and journals achieve via open access, which leads to new connections and opportunities. Many of our authors return and publish second, third and even fourth books with us.

What role does collaboration (within UCL and across the wider publishing community) play in the success of UCL Press?

Our publishing endeavours involve much wider collaboration and depend on numerous colleagues and other departments at UCL as well as the wider world of university presses and scholarly publishing and the systems and services that support them. Our leaders and colleagues in Libraries, Culture, Collections and Open Science champion and support all our endeavours. Our governance boards also play a huge role, helping to shape our strategy and publishing programmes and advocating for our work at the university and beyond. Our membership of a number of publishing associations, including AUP, OASPA, ALPSP and OIPA, provides a wide range of resources, knowledge sharing opportunities, training, the ability to join forces to address key issues and, importantly, collegiality and a strong sense of shared purpose. The university press community is exceptionally generous and collaborative. And we rely on a global network of partners that host and promote our books, including JSTOR, OAPEN and Chicago University Press.

As UCL Press marks its 10th anniversary, what reflections do you have on the journey so far—and what are your hopes for the future?

I’d like to recognise the stellar work of the UCL Press team. In the 10 years since we launched, we’ve grown from a team of 2 to a team of 13 and everyone in the Press brings extensive skills and experience from their previous roles in publishing, bookselling and HE libraries. Their talent and their commitment to the Press and its authors are truly impressive. The last 10 years have been a ‘thriller’, to borrow a phrase used recently in conversation by another publisher. We look forward to the next 10 years of championing scholarly research, publishing excellence and the open science movement.

Where can we find out more about UCL Press?

You can find out more on our website: www.uclpress.co.uk

Celebrating 10 Years of UCL Press