Who we are
Established as the UK’s first fully open access university press in 2015, UCL Press has fast become one of the leading open access scholarly publishers in the UK, publishing both traditional peer-reviewed scholarly works and innovative research outputs. We currently publish over 50 open access books a year in addition to 14 academic journals, and support UCL’s successful student journals programme.
Based at UCL, one of the world’s leading research universities, our primary outputs are scholarly monographs and edited collections, but we also publish textbooks, journals and other innovative research outputs. Our books have been accessed more than 5 million times by readers across the world.
UCL Press makes all its books and journals available in open access form to download freely in PDF form or read online anywhere in the world. They can be downloaded freely from UCL Press’s website or from the many other platforms where they are distributed. UCL believes in the principles of open access as the best way to solve the world’s global challenges. Find out more about open access here.
UCL Press is a member:
UCL Press Vision and Mission
Vision
For UCL Press to be recognised as one of the leading Open Access publishers in the world.
Mission
- To publish high-quality and cutting-edge research outputs
- To achieve maximum global reach and impact for its publications and achieve wide engagement with global audiences
- To support the field of academic publishing, through practice, training, research and sharing of data
- To represent a range of key academic research interests, with a particular focus on the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
- To support early career researchers and first book publishing
- To uphold a strong commitment to research and publication ethics
- To demonstrate a commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion in all its activities
- To promote the integration of research and education in the outputs of the Press
- Shares UCL’s commitment to sustainability: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/sustainable/policy-and-strategy
UCL Press financial model
UCL Press is subsidised to a large degree by UCL to provide open access publishing and it delivers significant impact for the university. Its books and journals have been downloaded in the millions around the world since it launched in 2015. UCL is committed to an Open Science future and believes that research should be made freely available to all. It therefore sees UCL Press's OA model as a valuable and necessary investment. UCL Press has income streams from print sales, BPCs, grants and consultancy, which offset some of the institutional investment.