9 June 2021
Liverpool University Press (LUP) has announced that it is adding to its existing Open Access (OA) publishing programmes this June, by launching an innovative monograph funding initiative. In partnership with COPIM, LUP will be rolling out an Opening the Future programme where they’ll offer libraries subscription/membership access to a choice of two modern language backlist series - and in return the Press will use subscription fees to produce new OA monographs, freely accessible to all.
LUP has a long history of publishing in the Romance languages, and in open access publishing: they’ve explored many avenues, from BPCs to Green OA, and have been publishing OA books since 2010. This new Opening the Future programme sees them expand this commitment to disseminating research globally, and by harnessing the power of collective library funding no single institution bears a disproportionate burden.
Anthony Cond, Liverpool University Press CEO, said, “The strategic and societal importance of understanding different languages and cultures demands evolving models of research dissemination. The Opening the Future membership scheme is forward-looking and offers a new pathway to impact in a vital field, and Liverpool University Press is well-placed to be an early pioneer. We have been a publisher of open access books for more than a decade and a publisher of high quality Hispanic Studies research for more than a century. Now in 2021 Opening the Future will renew our commitment to open access in the modern languages.”
The programme and platform were initially devised and launched by Work Package 3 of the COPIM project - a partnership of researchers, librarians, publishers and infrastructure providers. WP3 lead, Professor Martin Paul Eve, based at Birkbeck, University of London, said “We’re really excited to be working with LUP on this launch. In October 2020 we established a similar programme with Central European University Press to give member access to (and fund new OA) books on post-Communist Europe and transitions to democracy; so we’re now seeing Opening the Future become a viable option for sustaining publishing in areas of research that span different cultures and the globe. Through this initiative, libraries will gain online access to excellent research, enhancing their collections in Latin American Studies, and contemporary Hispanic and Lusophone cultures. At the same time, their membership fees will enable Liverpool University Press to publish new monographs in these research areas but this time as open access and available to anyone all over the world”. Along with COPIM, LUP is partnering with LYRASIS to facilitate library membership participation in the USA and Canada.
More information can be found at lup.openingthefuture.net. For further information please contact Martin Paul Eve at martin.eve@bbk.ac.uk and Anthony Cond at a.cond@liverpool.ac.uk.