UC Press logoThe University of California Press in the nonprofit publishing arm of the University of California system, and was founded in 1893. It publishes on average 175 new books and 33 journals in the humanities, social & behavioral sciences, and natural sciences each year. Since 2015, it is the publisher of the Collabra and Luminos open access (OA) initiatives.

Journals

“Collabra” is the brand for University of California Press’s open access journal program. The program feature the core values of:

  • Fairness in pricing and business practice
  • Scientific and scholarly rigor—defined by each community
  • Transparency and openness, in data, methods, competing interests—defined by each community
  • Putting the academic community first—which community primarily creates and maintains a journal’s profile and identity

The Collabra program currently publishes two open access journals, Collabra: Psychology and Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, with plans for continued expansion and journal acquisition.

The above journals not only openly share research but also recognize the value contributed by the research community to the review process. Instead of UC Press retaining all funds generated from author APCs, the Collabra “pay-it-forward” model shares income with reviewers and editors for their work on the journals. They can opt to pass on their earnings either to an APC waiver fund that benefits other authors or their institution’s open access fund. Learn more about Collabra publishing initiatives here.

Books

Luminos

Monographs are the cornerstone of scholarly research in the humanities and social sciences, but have long been under siege. Shrinking library budgets and rising costs result in higher prices. The upshot is that publishers must reduce the number of titles they publish, regardless of the merits of the work. Luminos is University of California Press’s open access response to this challenging monograph landscape. With the same high standards for selection, peer review, production, and marketing as the Press’ traditional program, Luminos is a transformative open access monograph model, built as a partnership where costs are shared between all parties who benefit from publication—author or institution, publisher, and libraries. Learn more about Luminos at LuminosOA.org.

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