About us

Mission

Oxford University Press (OUP) publishes the highest quality journals and delivers this research to the widest possible audience. We achieve this by working closely with our society partners, authors, and subscribers in order to provide them with publishing services that support their research needs.

Part of the academic community

Oxford University Press prides itself on being both a part of and a partner in the academic community. A department of the University of Oxford, OUP draws on a prestigious research heritage and a deep understanding of the wants and needs of researchers and academics. As a member of the academic community, we understand and can address the needs of our publishing partners in a way that no profit-driven publisher can.

Productive partnerships

We consider our role in the academic community to extend to the publishing we do on behalf of societies. We publish over 450 journals in the humanities, social sciences, law, science, and medicine, two-thirds of which are published in partnership with learned and professional societies. Societies want to publish with OUP because we understand and can deliver on shared strategic goals for their titles.

Tailored society publishing

OUP does not adopt a one-size-fits all approach; we work with our partners towards clear objectives, tailoring services to individual journal needs and offering a range of options across all functions. We provide expert advice to ensure each journal’s continued and optimal development. This takes many forms, including:

Strategic support
Journal layout
Production services
Editorial services
Marketing and promotions
Online functionality
Journal branding

OUP is not bound by the need to satisfy shareholders, so we can focus on the best medium- and long-term solutions for each journal and society. Each title has a dedicated team of named individuals – people familiar with each journal who are available to our society partners and journal editors on a daily basis.

Quality

An integral part of our scholarly mission is to publish journals of the highest quality with the greatest impact, presenting innovative research that furthers future advances.

OUP has the highest percentage of journals in the top 10% by impact factor and the lowest percentage of journals in the bottom 50% among publishers with over 100 journals in ISI Impact Factor ranking. Our journals offer excellent value and are available and read around the world. We do not have a long tail of low quality/low use titles; every one of the journals we publish is highly valued by its community, and our brand is trusted to deliver the very best content worldwide.

OUP’s Delegates, who are appointed from academic staff at the University, are integral to our journal acquisitions process. They are actively involved in publishing decisions, helping to shape our collections in ways that reflect the needs of the academic community and give our list authority through academic rigor. This process ensures that our publishing is of the highest quality.

Dissemination

Working with societies and authors to publish exceptional content is just the start of our mission. We are committed to ensuring that our journals are disseminated worldwide, so that researchers are able to access our content wherever and whenever they need it.

We work closely with the international library community to make our journals collections a realistic option for institutions of all sizes and budgets. We maintain our renewals and secure new business in even the toughest markets, thanks to our reputation for top-quality content, flexible business models, superb pre- and post-sale customer support, and fair pricing policies.

We collaborate with global partners to provide low- or no-cost access to our journals to make cutting-edge research available to the people who critically need it. Through our Developing Countries Program, we partner with the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP), the HINARI project from the World Health Organization, and the eIFL Foundation to offer over 2,000 institutions free or greatly discounted online access to most of our journals.

Continuous evolution

Oxford University Press has continually grown with technology advances to ensure researchers can access the latest content in the most convenient format. With over 100 years of experience producing authoritative journals, we are constantly evolving our publishing to increase the usage and discoverability of our content.

Our journals average three million article downloads per month, with access coming from nearly every country in the world, including the 78 countries in which we have agreements with library consortia.
We embrace new technologies and formats to effectively provide content in intuitive ways for the research and professional community.
All of our journals are mobile optimized.

We act inventively and responsibly on behalf of our publishing partners to experiment with different, sustainable open access business models and regularly report on our findings, both to our partners and the wider academic community. We were the first publisher to transition a mature journal to Open Access. Today, over 100 journals use our optional Open Access model, and we have nine fully open access journals.