Academic Press

Sheffield Hallam Academic Press publishes Open Access material, using a model where both reading and publishing is free of charge. The Press is not-for-profit and is set up and funded by your Library.

Sheffield Hallam Academic Press serves the SHU community by publishing research monographs and edited collections as well as teaching materials such as textbooks, where there is at least one SHU author. The focus will be on publishing works in digital format, with an option for print-on-demand sales at cost price.

Through the Press, Sheffield Hallam authors can enjoy all the benefits of publishing Open Access. These benefits are abundantly clear and proven: the books can be read, reviewed, shared, and cited without depending on readers buying it or libraries stocking it. In this way, the books can more easily receive public notice. Open Access therefore greatly increases the opportunities for your work to be read widely and to have an impact on the world.

Quality is a major focus: the Press brings the same level of quality and academic rigour as traditional scholarly presses, through an editorial board consisting of SHU academics who manage content acquisition as well as academic quality control, outsourcing peer review to external academic colleagues.

You are warmly invited to submit proposals for your scholarly monographs, edited collections or textbooks to the Press.

We welcome submissions from all disciplines, for the following publications:

• research monographs
• edited collections  
• teaching materials such as textbooks, including works in non-traditional formats

There must be at least one SHU author on the proposal.

To submit a proposal, please complete the SHAP Proposal form and return it to academic-press@shu.ac.uk

Review of proposals

Proposals for all publications are sent for external peer review (usually a single-blind process, with at least two independent, external academic reviewers). The Editorial Board bases its commissioning discussion on the proposal, the reviews and the author response to these. The Editorial Board will evaluate the proposal information with a focus on the academic nature of the submission and background of the project, the structure and style of the book, and the intended audience. 

Full manuscript review

Once commissioned and a contract has been signed by the author or editor, projects undergo a further peer review process at the point at which the completed manuscript is submitted. Again, this is usually single-blind, with at least two reviewers, who are invited to comment either on the whole book/educational resource or on chapters in an edited collection.