Why Start A University Press? A Conversation with ]u[ Ubiquity Founder Brian Hole

]u[ Ubiquity Partner Presses was established in 2014, to provide infrastructure and expertise that would enable university and society presses to commit to open access publishing. Today, our ]u[ Ubiquity Partner Network is comprised of over 30 presses, over half of which are university presses. We are proud to support such a diverse group of university presses, and are strong proponents of the invaluable role that university presses play in scholarly communications.

In honour of University Press Week 2023, we will be posting a series of blog posts focused around and celebrating university presses. In this post, we spoke to ]u[ Ubiquity founder and CEO, Brian Hole, about the origin story behind the ]u[ Ubiquity Partner Network, the current university press publishing landscape, and the unique benefits of an institution setting up their own open access, university press.

Why did you decide to create the ]u[ Ubiquity Partner Press platform?

Brian: We first started ]u[ Ubiquity Press as an independent scholarly publisher, with a 100% dedication to Open Access. In order to be fully optimized for OA, we really had to both extend the OJS software we were running journals on, and build our own press website to make books properly open as well. That we managed to do this very quickly caught the eye of others in the scholarly community, who noted that other publishers and in particular university presses, really lacked this kind of capability. When we took their advice and investigated this further, we found a significant amount of interest, not only in platform hosting for OA, but in all of the supporting services around publishing. Our Partner Press platform was thus established with the launch of Westminster University Press in 2014 and has been growing ever since.

How has the university press publishing landscape changed in the last 10 years; are there any major trends you have noticed, or indeed are there any opportunities (or barriers) for university presses, or institutions looking to start a press, that didn’t exist a decade ago?

Brian: We have seen a critical revival of university presses in the UK and Europe, which is mirrored in how many of the presses on our platform are newly launched. Libraries have also been increasingly seeking to evolve their roles within their institutions, looking to increase the ways they support both open access and academic publishing in general.

In the United States, things are a little different, with a much larger community of University Presses already in place. Here what is interesting is that these presses have been slower to take up Open Access, partly because they have strongly entrenched publishing models focused on traditional book sales. We believe this is going to start changing quite quickly as these presses come under more pressure from authors for OA. An example of this will be the University Press Library Open portal, which we will begin hosting in early 2024 for the eBound foundation. This will be a strong catalyst for the expansion of OA with many leading US university presses.

What do you believe are the unique benefits of a university setting up its own press, as opposed to publishing through other means?

Brian: Every university press is unique, each being set up to benefit their institution and academics in different ways. Sometimes this is to support existing publishing activity on campus, or a particularly strong disciplinary focus at the institution. In some cases, the universities and their libraries are focused on making more Open Access options available, especially as they see the large publishers as reluctant to do so at anything other than an exorbitant cost.

The one common factor that all university presses do share is that they are reputation-enhancing for their institutions. By playing a prominent role in scholarly publishing, aligned with academic values through Open Access, these institutions raise their profiles as research institutions and are thereby better able to attract students and staff in a very competitive international market.

What does ]u[ Ubiquity uniquely offer that can support universities looking to set up and maintain their own university press?

Since each university press is unique, we offer a fully custom solution for each one. This goes from advice on establishing and running a press (we have our own and have helped to develop over 30 others), to hosting the book and journal content online, to all professional services associated with a press such as typesetting and indexing. Publishing is a people business, and we provide dedicated support to each press, and work together as partners to make them successful. Essentially we de-risk the setting up of a press.

An analogy is that starting a press with us is like buying a shiny new car. You get in, turn the key and take it where you want to. We provide the engine and mechanics to ensure that all the back-end publishing work happens seamlessly while you enjoy the drive.

An important thing to look for in any partnership is shared values, and our commitments to Open Access, Open Infrastructure and community involvement mean that we can be trusted as long-term partners. We also bring an entire network of presses with shared values with us through the Ubiquity Partner Network, believing we are all stronger if we support each other.

What place do you see university presses occupying in the next 10 years and beyond in the publishing landscape, particularly within the OA space?

I think that university presses will continue to be established and to expand, increasing the diversity of publishing. At the same time, the existing ones will expand their Open Access activity, which will especially benefit the Humanities and Social Sciences. Many in the scholarly community are quick to decry what they see as the consolidation of the publishing world, but they ignore and underestimate the importance of growth among university presses, which are critical hotbeds of diversity, creativity and openness. I believe that their resurgence will continue, and that they will continue to play an ever more critical role in scholarly communications.

Is your society or institution interested in developing its OA initiatives, and becoming a publisher? The UPN is always growing; get in touch to find out more about setting up a ]u[ Ubiquity Partner Press.