About us

Established in June 2015 as the UK’s first fully open access university press, UCL Press is celebrating 10 years of award-winning open access publishing.

‘From the start, UCL Press was about breaking down barriers. Traditional academic publishing often locks knowledge behind paywalls, with monographs costing academic institutions and the public alike money and selling just a few hundred copies. UCL Press flipped this model of publishing on its head; it was the UK’s first fully open access university press, making OA publishing more accessible to both early career researchers and experienced scholars alike.’

Dr Paul Ayris, CEO of UCL Press and Pro-Vice-Provost (Library, Culture, Collections, Open Science), UCL

UCL Press is a pioneering publisher of high-quality Open Access books and journals. Building on UCL’s global reputation for scholarly excellence, UCL Press is disrupting traditional academic publishing by ensuring widespread dissemination of research worldwide, free to download online. Our commitment to making a digital version of every UCL Press publication available for free at the point of use ensures that researchers, teachers, learners and public citizens can access authoritative, peer-reviewed publications with no geographical, institutional or financial limitations.

Since launching, UCL Press has published over 400 scholarly monographs and 11 textbooks, and has built a portfolio of 15 scholarly journals. Its publications have now been downloaded more than 20 million times (correct to end of May 2025) in 242 countries and territories around the world, demonstrating unprecedented global impact and reaching audiences for whom books might otherwise be inaccessible or unaffordable.

Launched as part of UCL’s commitment to open research and scholarship, UCL Press was initially established to provide an opportunity for scholars to publish their monographs open access, addressing the prevailing traditional monograph publishing model that often sees print sales of just a few hundred copies. The Press has also built a strong Diamond OA journals programme featuring journals in the fields of Humanities and Social Sciences and Law, and a pioneering multidisciplinary journal on environment studies, UCL Open Environment, that operates an open peer review model. More recently, UCL Press has also established an open access textbooks programme to provide free, digital high-quality textbooks for students.

As well as providing UCL scholars with open access publishing opportunities, UCL Press also publishes independent scholars and authors from other institutions around the world, reflecting UCL’s commitment to global collaboration.

Books

UCL Press publishes around 60 books a year and currently has 18 active series, including those published in collaboration with the International Institute of Social History, SOAS and the V&A. Its key subject areas are Anthropology, Built Environment, Law, Education, Archaeology, Modern Languages, Political Science, History, and Heritage and Museum Studies, though it remains open to any subjects taught at UCL. Numerous books have won or been shortlisted for book awards. Find out more about our books programme and publishing with us here.

Open access funding model

UCL Press receives funding from UCL in order to support its open access publishing programme and deliver global impact for its publications. In addition, it has income streams from sales of print books, BPCs (Book Processing Charges) to non-UCL authors, grants from funders, consultancy and publishing services. Information for authors on funding your book can be found here. UCL is committed to an open science future and believes that research should be made freely available to all. It therefore sees UCL Press’s open access model as a valuable and necessary investment.

Future plans

With ongoing demand from authors and editors for its open access publishing model, UCL Press plans to increase its publishing activities in monographs, journals and textbooks in the coming years. Its international advocacy for the Open Access publishing model will also continue through ongoing collaboration and outreach with other institutions, research groups, societies and membership organisations.

Highlights from UCL Press’s 10 years of publishing include:

• Most downloaded book: How the World Changed Social Media by Prof Daniel Miller et al – downloaded more than 930,000 times in 224 countries and territories since publication in 2016
• Full download and print sales statistics can be found on our statistics page. Top 10 countries by number of downloads:
  • United States
  • United Kingdom
  • India
  • Canada
  • Germany
  • Australia
  • Philippines
  • China
  • Netherlands
  • Italy
• OA textbooks have been adopted globally on reading lists, serving students in the UK, Europe, Canada, South Korea and Panama.
• Journals programme: over 8 million downloads – most downloaded journal, The London Review of Education with over 1.8 million downloads since 2020
• Partnership with the V&A to publish scholarly monographs resulting from research into the V&A’s collections
• Recent awards for books include
  • Geographies of Solar Energy Transitions (Sareen and Martin, eds) won the American Energy Society’s 2024 Award for Best Edited Book
  • A Contemporary Archaeology of London’s Mega Events (Jonathan Gardner) won the 2024 London Archaeological Prize in for the best book about London archaeology published in the preceding two years
• Acquisition of two landmark series, The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham and The Survey of London (first titles publishing in 2026)
• UCL Press is among the first publishers to join the new Open Journals Collective, due to launch in 2026.

Author testimonials

‘I feel passionately committed to UCL Press… Thanks to open access, ethnographic monographs that used to sell around 600 copies might now be downloaded to 200,000 people … For an anthropologist, the global reach of the Press aligns closely with our own ethical commitments.’ – Professor Daniel Miller, Department of Anthropology, UCL, and author/editor of An Anthropological Approach to mHealth, The Global Smartphone, Ageing with Smartphones in Ireland, Social Media in an English Village, Visualising Facebook and How the World Changed Social Media

‘Having the opportunity to have my books read widely, particularly in low-income countries, has been a vital outcome of publishing open access – I’m still wondering who it was that has downloaded one of my books in the Vatican, and indeed in North Korea!’ – Professor Laura Vaughan, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, author of Mapping Society, editor of Suburban Urbanities and co-editor of Space Syntax

‘For both my books, open access has increased and developed new levels of engagement for me with scholars, policy makers and community members.’ – Dr Kusha Anand, Lecturer in Education and Citizenship, UCL Institute of Education, author of Teaching India-Pakistan Relations and co-author of Delhi’s Education Revolution: Teachers, Agency & Inclusion

‘It is extraordinary to think that students have read our book in places where they may not have access to courses like this but will get an introduction to the topic through our textbook. It’s been a great experience to work with the UCL Press team to develop this textbook. They provide a dedicated and supportive service to their authors and the quality of the published books is excellent.’ – Professor Jakob-Stougaard-Nielsen, School of European Languages, Culture and Society, UCL, and co-editor of Introduction to Nordic Cultures

‘The best publisher I’ve worked with by at least a country mile and one whose impact (download stats and maps) is easily demonstrable’ – Dr Arthur Chapman, Associate Professor in History Education, UCL Institute of Education, Editor-in-Chief of History Education Research Journal and co-editor for the series Knowledge and the Curriculum

 ‘It’s very important for me as an academic to publish open access to make sure that everybody can read what I have done and can feedback to me with their own insights.’ – Dr Yasemin Didem Aktas, Associate Professor of Applied Structures, UCL Engineering, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of UCL Open: Environment