Stockholm University Press Blog

By Christina Lenz, Managing Editor, Stockholm University Press and AEUP board member

Working at a University Presses means that we are determined to do the best for our researchers and our host institutions. This is what all University presses have in common.

My colleague, Sofie Wennström, is working with OPERAS, to take part in the work of European research infrastructure for the development of open scholarly communication. Stockholm University Press is a member of Association of European University Presses (AEUP) and I am part of the AEUP Board.

All of us at Stockholm University Press, and Stockholm University Library, are convinced that it is important for us to cooperate more on a European level.

The Board of AEUP has recently published Seven Statements on European University Presses. We believe that European university presses play an important role in scholarly communication. The first of these statements is:

European University Presses (UP) are here to make Europe’s diversity, especially its languages, cultures, and research disciplines, visible in scholarly communication.

“Who Needs Academic Publishers?”

This was a heading of the final keynote speaker Richard Charkin, at the 2018 University Press Redux Conference.  Richard Charkin stated that:

“publishing is not about profitability, it is about your assets – your authors”. (Richard Charking, 2018)

This is also about diversity, we need to listen to our authors, researchers, more (see also my AEUP Blog post “University Press Redux Conference 2018 #redux18“.

To do so we need to understand what makes us excellent as a University Press within a European context. I am sure we can learn from each others experiences. A forum for discussion will be held at the #AEUP18 International workshop “Keeping up with the standards” in Riga in June 5-6.

One of the topics for both the conference mentioned above and the AEUP workshop are about publishing Open Access Monographs. The AEUP workshop in Riga will focus on experiences and challenges regarding standards. To broaden the discussion the AEUP Board encourages all University Presses to take part in a survey on reviewing and quality control, production and dissemination/distribution.

I do belive that European University Presses need to cooperate a lot more, especially when we are now heading together into the European publishing platforms to accomplish the goals set for #openscience in Europe.

Are you interested in discussing some of these topics further? Please contact Stockholm University Press if you would like to write a blog post.