The theme for this year’s University Press Week, starting today, is #SpeakUP. In the first of a series of articles for the week, Chief Executive Alison Shaw reflects on what speaking up means to Bristol University Press as an organisation.
We have been speaking out about social justice and global social challenges since Policy Press was created in 1996, and this only increased when we became Bristol University Press in 2016. It is amazing that so many publishers are addressing these issues today and I am proud that it’s been in our DNA from the start. This makes us quite unique.
Policy Press was launched to ‘publish with a purpose’. For me, this meant bringing social research to a place where it could challenge inequalities and social justice in a way we are all still trying to do now. Publishing work that bridged academia, policy and practice and emphasised ‘impact’ was hard to find at this time but for me, this was essential if we were to engage with and speak up on social issues.
In launching Bristol University Press, we retained Policy Press’s ethos, values and mission. We turned Policy Press into a specialist imprint and have added 10 new lists balancing scholar-led and challenge-led research to Bristol University Press. Our aim is still to address injustice globally, support our authors and bring scholarly work to a place where it can challenge the status quo in a significant way. This is what SpeakUp means to us, and has done for nearly 30 years.
University Presses are incredibly fortunate to be embedded in the communities that they serve. We are there to support scholars, social commentators, politicians, practitioners – whoever we are working with – to speak up by getting their vital work out into the world so that it can help bring about or influence social change. We provide guidance and materials to help our authors ‘speak up’ to key policy makers, politicians and influencers to capitalise on their work. We also ensure that those affected by social issues are helped to speak up too, by publishing their contributions and including them in events, webinars and debates.
We also support people not only to speak up but to speak together, with a focus on interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity, across both Policy Press and Bristol University Press. Thinking about global social challenges in an interdisciplinary way allows for a more rounded view on addressing the issues. We also know the importance of speaking across world regions and reaching authors, reviewers and readers in low- and medium-income countries, enabling them to join the global conversations about social issues that are crucial to them.
Current projects, which we will explore in articles here throughout University Press Week, include developing our open access strategy including our Global Social Challenges Journal, becoming the first publisher to sign the Africa Charter for Transformative Research Collaborations, developing publishing formats to boost our impact, working with booksellers to allow us to speak to new audiences, and integrating Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) into our policies and processes.
What does speaking up mean to Bristol University Press? It fundamentally comes back to the question of what helps create the conditions for the widest social good. Regardless of background, country, politics or culture, everyone should be able to live knowing that they are safe and that they have their basic needs met. They can feed themselves and have appropriate shelter. They are not having to deal with war, conflict or abuse and can live without fear. Their children can access an education and a place to play. Physical and mental health care is available. And most importantly our planet and communities around the world are sustainable in the short and long-term. As a not-for-profit, mission-led university press, speaking up is what we have always done and what we will always continue to do.
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