Strategic Review

Background

While Warwick founded a university press as a Ltd company in late 1964, for various reasons this fell into abeyance. Then, around a decade ago, the University of Warwick Press (UWP or the Press hereafter) was resurrected by the Library to serve as an open-access, scholar-led, digital only, academic community publishing initiative. While this ‘new’ Press has proved a modest success with almost a dozen journals and over 20 longer works published, until recently there has been limited resource for more actively developing it. Today’s UWP continues to be managed by the University Library but now hosts numerous academic-run online research journals, alongside a modest digital monograph publishing operation. However, because this collection of scholarly content evolved somewhat autonomously the Press and its collections have not yet achieved the prominence it could potentially reach. This is important, because academic authors frequently prefer to publish their work alongside other high-quality materials. Moreover, anecdotal evidence has indicated that the Press also suffers from a relative invisibility among local scholars and students. These, along with other issues, represent concerns for its long-term sustainability and future potential effectiveness.

Outline Study

Because of these issues the Library, supported by funding from the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS), commissioned a report by local academics in 2023. This study contrasted the Press’ current state with moves across the past decade to establish other new, open-access university presses (NUPs). Today, possessing an established professional university publishing press, in addition to facilitating knowledge dissemination, has been shown to aid in enhancing reputational capital for their institutions, alongside taking an active participatory stance in shaping the global scholarly-communications landscape. Other potential benefits also exist such as reducing publishing expenditure, developmental opportunities and providing a nexus of publishing expertise which can support the local community’s publishing endeavours.

Strategic Review

A key outcome from this study was a recommendation for an active redevelopment of UWP. This led to the recent (Sept ’25) recruitment of the Press’ first specifically dedicated staff member, Dr Gareth J Johnson, as Press Manager. Dr Johnson’s remit is to build on the earlier study by conducting a strategic review of the Press’ operations, ambitions and potential. The outcomes from this twelve-month project will be:

  • a business case with rationalised recommendations for staffing, models and evolution of the Press
  • an outline five-year operational and implementation plan to bring about this evolutionary change
  • an exploration of routes through in which UWP can be enhanced, refined and supported within its current operational paradigm

Recommendations and resource implications emerging from these outcomes will be considered by Warwick’s senior managerial and leadership strata, who will make any final decision on the Press’ future direction.

Project Phases

The Press Manager reports to a Project Board, headed by the University Librarian, and liaises closely with the Library’s Open Research and Research and Academic Support teams. The strategic review project itself has five phases of activity, scheduled to run from mid-September 2025 to mid-September 2026.

  1. Landscape Evaluation: Scoping and exploring other new university presses modes of operation alongside establishing key markers and mechanisms for successful operation. [Completed]
  2. Community Consultation: Conversations with local scholars and other stakeholders to shape operations to resonate with institutional ambitions while establishing areas where a ‘future’ UWP can add value. [Ongoing]
  3. Modelling & Testing: Developing outline plans and proposals for an evolved Press, then testing and adjusting them with insights from the local community.
  4. Refinement & Governance: Final refinement of outputs and recommendations, alongside establishing key governance structures to underscore quality assured and effective operations.
  5. Close-Down: Delivery of final business, implementation and project plans to Project Board, close-down of project activity and handover of any key assets to colleagues.

Assuming support for the recommendations and planned develops is forthcoming, it is anticipated that the implementation of the Press’ new iteration will commence in academic year 26/27.

Contact & Further Information

Please contact Dr Gareth J Johnson (gareth.johnson@warwick.ac.uk) to discuss any aspect of this project or see our contacts page for alternatives. You may also like to subscribe to our newsletter which provides bi-monthly updates on the Press, project developments and publishing opportunities.

Sources

Baich, T., et al., 2023. An Ethical Framework for Library Publishing Version 2.0. Library Publishing Coalition. https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/libpubtaskforce/4/.

COPE, 2026. How to get started in publication ethics. https://publicationethics.org/getting-started.

COPIM, 2026. https://copim.pub/.

DOAJ/OASPA, Journal Toolkit. Directory of Open Access Journals/Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association. https://www.oajournals-toolkit.org/.

Fathallah, J., 2023. Governing Scholar-Led OA Book Publishers: Values, Practices & Barriers. COPIM. https://copim.pubpub.org/pub/final-wp4-report-governing-scholar-led-oa-book-publishers/release/2.

Fathallah, J., et al., 2025. Collective Funding Models for Open Access Books: Librarians experiences and barriers to participation across six European contexts. https://zenodo.org/records/17339946.

Jisc, 2021. New university press toolkit. https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/new-university-press-toolkit.

OBC, 2026. Open Book Collective. https://www.openbookcollective.org/.

OIPA, Useful Resources. Open Institutional Publishing Association. https://oipauk.org/useful-resources/.

Penier, I., et al., 2020. Revenue Models for Open Access Monographs. COPIM, https://zenodo.org/records/4455511. 

Vickery, J., & Byun, Y., 2023. The Future of the University of Warwick Press: A scoping study. Internal report.