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Our training hub

Our support through the School of Advanced Study (SAS) and its special funding from Research England means that we have a unique responsibility to support humanities researchers to understand the changing landscape of academic publishing and open access.

As part of the School’s work as a national centre for the promotion and facilitation of humanities research, we have developed a series of publishing-related training sessions that we run annually through the School’s Research Training programme. These training sessions are aimed at humanities researchers of all career stages but are particularly useful for early career researchers.

The series covers a range of topics, including useful overviews of books and journals publishing and open access, and are open to anyone to attend. To find out when these are running, please visit the School of Advanced Study’s Research Events calendar.

You can also find descriptions of the sessions we run and access recordings and slides for each one below. 

Overview of books publishing

This workshop provides a comprehensive overview of the process of getting your academic book published. Covering the scholarly publishing context, how to choose a publisher, preparing a proposal, book contracts and the writing and production process, while busting some myths about peer review along the way, the session will be of particular interest to doctoral and early career researchers in the humanities. 

Session Leaders: Paula Kennedy (Head of Publishing, University of London Press) and Emma Gallon (Publisher, University of London Press).

Watch the Overview of books publishing recording

Open access

This session provides an introduction to open access publishing, featuring Dr. Frances Pinter (a well-known advocate for open access and the Executive Chair of the Central European University Press, former CEO of Manchester University Press, founding Publisher of Bloomsbury Academic and founder of Knowledge Unlatched, amongst many other roles). Focusing on what open access is, the reasons for publishing open access, different types and models of open access for journals and books, expectations of researchers and how to handle potential challenges, the session equips researchers with the practical information they need to navigate today’s open access publishing landscape. 
 
Session leaders: Dr. Frances Pinter (Executive Chair, CEU Press; Senior Research Fellow, School of Advanced Study, University of London) and Dr. Emma Gallon (Publisher, University of London Press).

Watch the Open access recording

Open access in the humanities

We have developed an online, interactive course called Open Access in the Humanities, in conjunction with the Doctoral Centre at the School of Advanced Study. This free course is divided into three modules and offers an introduction to open access for humanities researchers at all levels. It supports participants to consider and approach open access publishing options for their research with increased confidence. 

Access the RESHAPED course

Overview of journals publishing

This is a comprehensive overview of the journal publishing process to help researchers understand how articles are published in journals. The session covers topics including how to find a suitable journal, understanding the editorial and production process, journal metrics to be aware of and open access publishing. This session will be of particular interest to doctoral students and early career researchers in the humanities. 
 
Session Leaders: Megan Garry-Evans (Journals Manager, University of London Press) and Sara Charles (Journals Manager, University of London Press).

Watch the Overview of journals publishing recording

Peer review 

This session is aimed at doctoral students and early career researchers and offers an introduction to the basics of peer review. Covering the role and importance of peer review to research quality, research integrity and researchers’ careers, the session uses practical examples to explain the peer review process for both journal articles and book proposals. 
 
If you’re looking for guidance on what to expect when getting your publications peer reviewed, or tips on being a peer reviewer yourself, this session will be useful for you. 
 
Session Leaders: Dr. Emma Gallon (Publisher, University of London Press) and Megan Garry-Evans (Journals Manager, University of London Press).

Watch the Peer review recording

Turning the PhD into a book

One of the key aims of this training session is to get doctoral researchers thinking about the process of transforming the PhD thesis into a monograph. Focusing in particular on writing a book proposal, participants work towards producing short summaries of their projects that communicate effectively to the two main audiences for a book proposal: the academic reviewer and the publisher. 
 
Session Leaders: Dr Joseph Ford (Senior Lecturer in French Studies, Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, School of Advanced Study) and Dr. Emma Gallon (Publisher, University of London Press).

Watch the Turning the PhD into a book recording

How to market your academic book

In this session, we help demystify the marketing process for first-time authors. It covers common questions such as: what can you expect your publisher to do to market your academic book – and what will they expect from you? What makes a good marketing brief? What marketing activities can authors do that will really make a difference in terms of sales and downloads? What is a book launch really for and how can you make a success of it?

Session Leaders: Katharine Nelson (Sales and Marketing Manager, University of London Press) and Faridha Karim (Publications Officer, University of London Press)

Watch the How to market your academic book recording

Other publishing training

Members of our team also lead or contribute to training sessions and workshops on academic publishing and open access organised by other institutions and societies. We are pleased to have worked with organisations such as Jisc, the M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries, EPOCH Magazine and Cara (the Council for at-Risk Academics) to run sessions and share resources. The list below offers links to slides and recordings of these training sessions and will be updated periodically:  

If you would like to enquire about options for offering training or workshops at your own institution, please contact Paula Kennedy (Head of Publishing) or Dr. Emma Gallon (Publisher).

Useful resources

We understand that you may have questions about academic publishing and would be happy to help, so please do get in touch. We also include below a list of helpful resources and links from around the web which provide more information and guidance on publishing open access in particular. 

  • OAPEN OA Books Toolkit for Authors: https://www.oabooks-toolkit.org/
    This is an excellent resource for anyone getting to grips with open access publishing for the first time. OAPEN promotes and supports the transition to open access for academic books by providing open infrastructure services to stakeholders in scholarly communication. They work with publishers to build a quality-controlled collection of open access books and provide services for publishers, libraries and research funders in the areas of hosting, deposit, quality assurance, dissemination and digital preservation, and operate three platforms: the OAPEN Library (a central repository for hosting and disseminating OA books), the OAPEN OA Books Toolkit, and the Directory of Open Access Books (a discovery service indexing OA books, in partnership with OpenEdition).  
  • Copim Compass: https://compass.copim.ac.uk/books
    This has lots of useful information for researchers on open access.
  • Jisc Introduction to Open Access: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/an-introduction-to-open-access
    Jisc have put together a helpful site which gives an introduction to open access and its benefits.  
  • Jisc’s series of ‘Open Access Myth Busting’ sessions: https://beta.jisc.ac.uk/search?q=myth+busting
    Jisc ran a series of 3 ‘myth busting’ training sessions in 2022, on themes including quality and prestige, copyright and third party rights clearance and compliance vs culture.  
  • Funding sources for open access publishing:  https://radicaloa.disruptivemedia.org.uk/resources/funding-opportunities/
    This list is put together by the Radical Open Access Collective, a community of scholar-led, not-for-profit presses, journals and other OA projects.  
  • Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies (ROARMAP) database: https://roarmap.eprints.org/
    This is a useful database which you can search to find out about OA mandates and policies from research funders, universities and other research institutions globally. 
  • UKRI Open Access ‘Making your research publications open access’: https://www.ukri.org/manage-your-award/publishing-your-research-findings/making-your-research-publications-open-access/#contents-list
    This outlines guidance for researchers on UKRI’s developing OA policy. 
  • Open Access Books Network: https://openaccessbooksnetwork.hcommons.org/
    The Open Access Books Network is a collaborative network of publishers, researchers, librarians, research funders, infrastructure providers and individuals interested in conversations about open access books. The website features useful information on a range of topics, including a dedicated section for authors interested in publishing open access.