Abstract
White Rose University Press (WRUP), is a library-led academic publisher supported by the Universities of
Leeds Sheffield and York. It was founded by the White Rose Libraries collaboration in response to
feedback from academics and as a result of increasing engagement with and support of the Open
Access (OA) agenda. This session details setting up the Press, and discusses the challenges faced so far
and the learning gained. It also outlines the current position and next steps for WRUP.
Opening in 2016, with a small staffing resource and very limited previous publishing experience, WRUP
is now reaching the end of the initial phase of its development. The governance structure sees a library-
led Management Board set scope and policy, with an Academic-led Editorial Board focussed on
commissioning high quality publications using a rigorous peer review process.
Workflows have been developed and improve iteratively as experience grows. WRUP is increasingly well
equipped to assist academics and help them shape their publications to achieve the best possible
output.
Challenges have been numerous. These range from building robust relationships with our technical
partners, through helping authors navigate the unfamiliar landscape of OA, to dealing with budgeting
round flexible project delivery timescales. The learning gained through each step has been invaluable as
we move to a greater number and diversity of projects. Supporting authors through the perceived
minefield of third party content has been particularly interesting, with the issues being much less
contentious than often portrayed.
At the start of 2019, WRUP has four live journals across a range of disciplines, three published
monographs and eight further books commissioned for publication in 2019-2020. We now are looking
to secure throughput of new projects through increased advocacy and marketing, and are also looking
at how to maximise dissemination of our titles through the complicated indexing environment.
