Arc Humanities Press invites our readers to join us in building a sustainable, research-led Open Access monograph program for the future
The pandemic demonstrated just how useful it is for academic research to be delivered through Open Access infrastructure. Its global accessibility benefits readers and authors alike. However, many models for OA books are prohibitive for authors in the Humanities, especially for those who are Early Career Researchers, despite the fact that vibrant new ideas generated by ECRs feed the scholarly advances of the future.
The New Voices Awards Program seeks to link researchers, libraries, and independent publishing in the common pursuit of research excellence by embedding this in a bespoke, mutually supportive relationship.
Click here to pledge £99 (about $119) towards New Voices. We chose £99 / $119 because that’s the typical price of one of Arc’s clothbound monographs.
Key Objectives
- target Open Access monograph funding at subject-specific research excellence in ground-breaking fields
- deliver OA funding where it’s most needed—supporting the work of Early Career Researchers, independent, or contingent scholars, and those from institutions (e.g., in the Global South) that are not well funded
How New Voices Works
- Suitable book proposals are pre-selected by the press’s editorial board and entered for the New Voices Awards once book manuscripts have successfully passed the peer-review process.
- In return for your pledge you will have the opportunity to vote on which of these books receive the Awards.
- Each New Voices Award provides approximately £6,000 to cover the costs of publishing one new OA monograph—immediate “gold” open access alongside hardback and affordable paperback options. All other costs are borne by the press.
- Pledge £99 (about $119) towards the program (or let us know if you want to pledge more).
- Each individual who makes a pledge gets one vote.
- The New Voices Award fund also receives contributions from our library crowd-funders.
- Any balance of funds that is insufficient to fund a whole Award is held over to the following year to contribute to the first full Award of that year.
- The aim is to make at least one New Voices Award each year for the first three years, beginning in 2022, and then review progress.
- On publication each title granted an Award will be made immediately available Open Access on Project MUSE and OAPEN and listed in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB).
- Your pledge will be acknowledged on our New Voices supporters page.