Seven Positions on the Importance of University Presses
The AG is a partner of the Association of European University Presses (AEUP): In March 2018, the AEUP published positions on the importance of European university presses for the first time. These positions underline the important role of university presses and position them as key actors and partners in policy and research. The Working Group endorses these positions. It now presents a modified version of the positions formulated by the AEUP in German:
Seven positions on institutional publishing infrastructures and university presses:
Non-commercial publishing infrastructures of European scholarly institutions play an important role in scholarly communication. European university presses are part of these infrastructures. The following seven positions underline their importance and position them as key actors and partners in policy and research.
- European university presses make an important contribution to making Europe visible in all its diversity, including in science communication. The broad spectrum of languages, cultures and research disciplines enriches the range of scientific and social discourses.
- With their services, European university presses bring tangible benefits to the institutions where they are located, as well as to their authors, editors and readers.
- European university presses align review processes and publication guidelines with international standards and the requirements of the respective disciplines. In this way, they contribute to safeguarding good scientific practice.
- The business models and work processes of European university presses reflect the needs of their academic authors and institutions. Academic-friendly funding models and supporting infrastructures as well as corresponding governance structures enable university presses to publish quality-assured open access monographs, journals and other forms of publication as well as materials in various formats and to offer technically new forms of indexing and use.
- Access to the results of scientific communication must be as free and comprehensive as possible so that science and society can fully benefit from it. Open Access and Open Science are important strategies to achieve this goal. European university presses support these strategies and thus contribute to global knowledge networks.
- European university presses are united by the goal of making the results of scientific communication visible in all their richness. In order to support society in its current and future challenges, the potential of the humanities and social sciences is to be tapped in particular, so that their research results are also available to society without restriction.
- Associations of university presses are important partners in the design of framework conditions for the above-mentioned goals, the effects of which will be felt in Europe and beyond.
