Mission
Scottish Universities Press (SUP) aims to provide a clear and cost-effective route for researchers to make their work freely available to a global audience, meeting the requirements of funders and realising the ambition to extend the impact of research across society.
Background
19 academic libraries are collaborating to develop an open access press and publishing platform that is managed by the participating libraries. The project is being coordinated through SCURL (Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries), the membership body that supports collaborative initiatives across Scotland’s academic and research libraries.
The process began with the identification of a shared challenge across member libraries. In this case it was the need for a clear and cost-effective route to open access publishing that would satisfy funder requirements, REF requirements and align to the principles of Plans S. A key driver was the announcement from UKRI that from 1 January 2024 monographs, book chapters and edited collections must be made open access within 12 months of publication. Beyond meeting this immediate objective there is an appetite to explore alternative approaches to academic publishing that have the needs of the academic community at the core.
In 2019 SCURL commissioned research to test the proof of concept for a collaborative universities press. The resulting report, Proof of Concept for a Scottish University Press, was very favourable towards the prospect and discussions began on taking forward the findings. A Management Board was formed from representatives at participating institutions and met for the first time in 2021. After an open call for applications, the SUP Editorial Board was appointed in July 2022 .
SUP launched its first call for book proposals in November 2022 and started publishing from October 2024.
We publish work by researchers from any UK HEI.
We cover all subject areas that receive submissions.
We will focus on publishing monographs and edited collections in the pilot phase of the Press (2022-2024), but the wider ambition is to extend this to other types of content, including journals and textbooks.
We publish fully open access books on the SUP platform using Creative Commons licences. Authors retain the copyright to their work.
All proposals and manuscripts go through a rigorous peer review process, managed by an Editorial Board of academics from across participating institutions.
We provide the option to buy print copies and authors can still receive royalties.
We provide a full publishing service, including copy-editing, design and typesetting, marketing and global dissemination.
The running costs of the press are met by the participating institutions. This subsidised model allows SUP to deliver low production charges (see the Costs and funding section).
The press operates on a not-for-profit basis and any surpluses will be reinvested in the press for the benefit of all partners.