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The Open Book Collective Welcomes University of Westminster Press

A diamond open access publisher of peer reviewed academic books, textbooks, policy briefs and journals

Published onFeb 08, 2024
The Open Book Collective Welcomes University of Westminster Press
The Open Book Collective (OBC) is delighted to welcome the University of Westminster Press as a publisher member!

University of Westminster Press (UWP) was founded in 2015 as a digital-first, non-profit open access publisher of peer reviewed academic books, textbooks, policy briefs and journals, seeking to promote a uniquely University of Westminster perspective on global challenges to an international audience.

As one of the first in a new breed of open university presses, and as the 3rd largest publisher of this type in the UK, UWP is proud to be part of a new movement in scholarly publishing that is community led and mission driven, providing an alternative to legacy publishing models. UWP champions a diamond open access model where research is both free to read and free to publish, ensuring an equitable, inclusive and accessible approach. Their books and journals have a broad global reach, accessed everywhere from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, and in 2023 they surpassed three million views and downloads of their publications.

UWP publishes across the arts, humanities and social sciences, with particular strengths in communication and media studies, geography, law, cultural studies and political science. The Press publishes six journals and their book programme includes series on Critical Digital and Social Media Studies, Law and the Senses, and Cultural China, with a new series on social justice launching in 2025. Their series of policy briefs is published in association with the renowned Communications and Media Research Institute at Westminster. UWP’s mission is to make a difference through open publishing by enabling the broad, barrier-free reach of impactful research, ensuring more researchers can access equitable open access publishing options, and challenging the status quo in scholarly communications.

UWP is one of three University Presses to join the OBC this month, with each offering a new Supporter Programme available for university libraries and other supporters to subscribe to. Supporters can subscribe to UWP’s programme for a term of 1 to 3 years, at a rate of between £300 and £1,000 per year (€350-€1,150; $375-$1,150), depending on the size/location of the supporting organisation. Its Supporter Programme can also be subscribed to via the OBC’s new University Press package, which combines the Supporter Programmes from all three of our University Press members.

The OBC is a charity working to deliver a diverse and sustainable future for open access books and publisher members are crucial to that. We believe in collectivism, non-competition, and the need to reimagine the funding of open access books, to move beyond a reliance on Book Processing Charges. The OBC gathers together a range of open access presses and publishing initiatives that fit our membership criteria, creating a trusted group of open access initiatives for libraries to support and for authors and readers to explore. In this way, the OBC assists publishers in securing sustainable revenue streams to fund a fair future for open access books.

If you are a publisher working in line with our values and are interested in learning more and joining the OBC to strengthen the community of OA initiatives and access collective funding, feel free to contact our outreach team or apply directly.

If you are a library interested in finding out more about the Open Book Collective, get in touch with us at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you!

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