Central European University Press to move to open access monograph programme

The Central European University Press (CEUP) is transitioning to an open access (OA) monograph programme through its new library subscription membership initiative, Opening the Future. The organisation will provide access to portions of its  backlist and use the revenue from members’ subscriptions to allow the frontlist to be OA from the date of publication. The CEUP is working with the Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM) project. 

Additional partners include Project MUSE, as hosting platform for the subscription packages and new OA titles, along with LYRASIS facilitating library membership participation, and with OAPEN for hosting and dissemination of OA titles.

CEUP says it is creating a sustainable OA publishing model that will give members access to a selection of the extensive backlist, DRM-free and with perpetual access after three years. In return, this membership revenue will then be used to make newly-published books openly accessible to anyone. When the revenue target is met and the entire monograph frontlist is openly accessible, future membership fee rates will be lowered. 

The initiative builds on library journal membership models such as Open Library of the Humanities and ‘Subscribe to Open’ such as that being piloted by Annual Reviews, and also on successful book membership programmes such as those at Open Book Publishers and Punctum Books.

COPIM is an international partnership of researchers, universities, librarians, open access book publishers and infrastructure providers supported by the Research England Development Fund (REDFund) as a major development project in the Higher Education sector. CEUP will be provided with assistance in implementing this model through Work Package 3 of the COPIM programme including documentation of this ‘working model’ as a step towards creating a free, open toolkit and roadmap for other book publishers considering OA.

Frances Pinter, executive chair at CEUP, said: ‘We’re pleased to be working with COPIM as this partnership will allow us to not only achieve our goals at CEUP but to also demonstrate a sustainable model that I believe will scale up in ways that provide efficiencies and equity to the benefit of all. I am delighted that Project MUSE, LYRASIS and OAPEN are supporting the project. We’re looking forward to working with many stakeholders to ensure success.’

Martin Paul Eve, Professor of Literature, Technology and Publishing at Birkbeck, University of London, and one of the COPIM project leads, added: ‘We are looking forward to working with CEUP over the next two years and will be recording our progress through regular blog posts and reports. This case study collaboration will be a keystone in the COPIM project’s future success. We hope that, with the documented success of Opening the Future, we will have a model that could lead to the widespread transition of university presses worldwide to OA.’