The Association of University Presses (AUPresses) expanded and engaged its international community demonstrably over the past year, continuing to live into a commitment to advancing “the essential role of a global community of publishers whose mission is to ensure academic excellence and cultivate knowledge.” Signaled by numerous translations of that mission statement on our website, the Association’s global nature was visible in the following actions:
- Welcomed new members AUS Press in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates; City University of Hong Kong Press; National Taiwan University Press in Taipei; and Pan-Atlantic University Press in Lagos, Nigeria.
- Increased volunteers from outside the US in committee work: 36 publishing professionals representing member presses from Vancouver to Hong Kong and Aarhus to Johannesburg served on AUPresses committees this program year (up from 30 individuals in 2024-2025), including 7 in leadership roles.
- Organized new cooperative exhibits to showcase member presses at the inaugural Charleston Conference Asia in Bangkok and the American Booksellers Association Winter Institute in Pittsburgh, while continuing to promote members’ work at international bookfairs in Mexico City, Frankfurt, and London; the original Charleston Library Conference; and the UKSG Annual Conference in Glasgow.
- Cosponsored “African-Aligning Voices: African-Asian University Press Collaborative Workshop,” preceding the Charleston Conference Asia in Bangkok, which brought together university presses from South Africa, Namibia, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Tanzania, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Philippines. Michael Duckworth (Hong Kong University Press), Andrew Joseph (Wits University Press), and Peter Schoppert (National University of Singapore Press) were among the organizers.
- Cosponsored the UP Redux 2026, organized by the Association of Learned and Professional Scholarly Publishers (ALPSP) and Liverpool University Press in March 2026. Executive Director Peter Berkery, President Dennis Lloyd (Wisconsin), and President-elect Stephanie Williams (Wayne State) presented a plenary discussion on “Publishing in Perilous Times” during this conference.
- Promoting awareness of African scholars’ and publishers’ perspectives on the global scholarly publishing ecosystem by cosponsoring the Open Access Week 2025 presentation of Nwachukwu Egbunike (Pan-Atlantic University Press) at the University of Michigan, hosted by the University of Michigan Press, and supporting the publication of his presentation, “Who Owns Our Knowledge: An African University Press Perspective,” in The Scholarly Kitchen.
- Continued support for the Rosenblum Award for Scholarly Publishing Impact, with ALPSP, the National Information Standards Organization, the Society for Scholarly Publishing, and the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers. This year’s recipient is the Digital Preservation of the Scholarly Record.
- Arranged for the traveling 2025 Book, Jacket, and Journal Show to visit the UP Redux conference in Liverpool and make its debut in Hong Kong in March 2026, hosted by Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, City University of Hong Kong Press, and Hong Kong University Press, at the University Bookstore at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
- Celebrated University Press Week 2025 with in-person events in Toronto and Montreal; Edinburgh, London, and Oxford; Barcelona; Hong Kong and across the United States from Seattle to Coral Gables.
- Signed the Publishing Inclusion Pledge, aiming to help publishers to take meaningful action to build a more inclusive publishing industry in the UK.
- Continued to serve on the international steering committee for Peer Review Week.
- Executive Director Peter Berkery also discussed trust in research at the 2025 STM Conference in Frankfurt and continued to participate in the Researcher to Reader conference in London.
