Scottish Universities Press

SCURL (Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries). Covers the following academic libraries: Abertay University, University of Dundee, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier University, University of Glasgow, Glasgow Caledonian University, The Glasgow School of Art, Heriot Watt University, The Open University, Queen Margaret University, Robert Gordon University, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, SRUC, University of St Andrews, University of Stirling, University of Strathclyde, University of the Highlands and Islands, University of the West of Scotland

Consortium · United Kingdom

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Scottish Universities Press

https://sup.ac.uk

Dominique Walker
Email: dwalker002@dundee.ac.uk

Program Overview

Mission/Objectives:
19 SCURL member libraries have collaborated to develop an open access publishing press that is managed by the participating libraries. The Scottish Universities Press (SUP) aims to provide a clear and cost-effective route for researchers to make their work freely available to a global and more diverse audience, realizing the ambition to extend the impact of research across the whole of society. SUP explores alternative approaches to academic publishing, that have the needs of the academy community at the core. We aim to save money for institutions by repurposing subscriptions funds to cover open access publishing and to create a Scotland-wide solution so that smaller or less research-intensive institutions are not left out. SUP will initially publish monographs and edited collections by researchers at participating institutions, with the intention to extend to other types of content from 2024 onward. Books will be published open access with CC-BY licenses, meaning the author retains copyright. All proposals and manuscripts will go through a rigorous peer review policy that is managed by the SUP Editorial Board, comprising of 14 academics from across participating institutions. SUP offers a full publishing service to authors, including copy-editing, typesetting and marketing. SUP operates on a not-for-profit basis, investing any surpluses back into the Press. The collaborative infrastructure established through SUP demonstrates Scottish institutions’ commitment to open access innovation, working as major contributors to global efforts to create a fair and equitable academic publishing model.

• Publishing activities began: 2022
• Stage of publishing efforts: 2 - Early
• Open access focus: Central to mission
• Portion of Open Access publications: All
• Publishing Languages: English

Program Organization

• Organization of publishing services: Organization (e.g., non-profit association, library consortium) that provides or supports library publishing activities on behalf of its library members
• Advisory/editorial board: Yes
• Total staffing in Full Time Equivalents (FTE): 2
• Individual people: 3
• Funding sources: Author fees, Charge backs/cost sharing

Publishing Activities

• Monographs

Partners

• Internal partners:  Individual faculty
• Other publishing entities administered by your library: Yes
  some SUP member libraries do manage other publishing entities at their institutions (e.g. Edinburgh Diamond at the University of Edinburgh)
• Other publishing entities within your library’s parent institution: Yes
  Edinburgh University Press within University of Edinburgh - Meeting colleagues and sharing updates
• Program’s openness to working with external partners: Open to working with any external partner
• Part of a consortium which provides support for publishing? (e.g. platform, funding): No

Technologies & Services

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Policies

Additional Information

Last Year:
Commissioning Editor appointed in April 2024 to develop content strategy. Queen's University Belfast have joined SUP as a member Library and will contribute to costs of running press. SUP is now a Community Interest Company (CIC) to embed our not-for-profit status and to become a legal entity.

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Future Plans:
We will look at expanding our publishing program beyond monographs and edited collections to include journals and textbooks. First monographs will publish from summer 2024 onwards.

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