Policy Press

Supporting our community during COVID-19

We are following the university and government advice at every stage and aim to operate a flexible-working, team-based approach which reduces large group contact, but allows us to reintroduce the cultural and social aspects that are so important to our company.

We would like to thank the whole BUP team who have been incredibly flexible and professional over the past 18-months. We have continued to deliver the highest-quality service to our authors and editors, customers and readers, and the wider research community and we hope you have felt supported during this time.

If you do have any questions or issues then please contact your usual BUP and PP contact, email our customer service email bup-info@bristol.ac.uk or call the office at 0117 954 5940 and leave a message. We monitor these email accounts and phone lines during our core working hours 9am-5pm GMT Monday to Friday and will deal with your query as quickly as possible.

As a leading publisher on social issues, we responded to the impact of the pandemic by commissioning content that directly addresses the social challenges we face.  Our COVID-19 collection brings together key work on this vital topic and our Rapid Responses format enables authors to publish eBooks in just six weeks so they can join fast moving debates authoritatively and quickly. Both collections continue to grow as we learn to live with life after lockdown.

Over the past 18-months, we have been overwhelmed by the response from our authors to write and record content for our Transforming Society Blogpodcast and webinar series. This has allowed us to quickly publish insightful social commentary on their work and the impact recent events has had in their area.

How to access our digital and eBook content

We continue to support our research, student, policy, and practice communities through our partnerships with our eBook providers through flexible access to our digital books catalogue. Please contact any of the providers for follow up queries on their initiatives, several: Oxford Scholarship Online, JSTOR, ProQuest, EBSCO, Cambridge Core, Project Muse, VitalSource and Kortext.

How to access our digital journal content

We continue to support for the scholarly and library communities, offering subscriptions offers for individual titles to our full premium collection. For further information on this offer please contact our Institutional Key Account Manager Simon Bell.

We also continue to offer free trial access to our journals and any organisation can sign up via our Ingenta Connect page. If you need any help with the set-up, please contact us at bup-journals@bristol.ac.uk.

Please also remember that all Bristol University Press journal content on Ingenta can be accessed via Google’s Campus Activated Subscriber Access (CASA) system. CASA uses a secure token to continue recognising users for a short period of time when they move off-campus, enabling more mobile subscription access. General information about all our journals can be found here

Open Access content

Many of our books and journal articles are available Open Access. These titles are available in ePDF version for anyone to read via the OAPEN website. Browse our latest Open Access journal articles here.

Meeting authors and researchers

As hybrid conferences replace full face-to-face conferences, we are pleased to see many of our authors, editors, online or in person at events. We are constantly monitoring the conference situation and keep our events calendar updated over this period. You can also see the conferences we have attended here

Although there is still a question mark over many physical conferences or launch events in the future, we have been actively setting up virtual book displays and online events to ensure books and journals are widely publicised. If you do have a book publishing with us, your Editor and Marketing Coordinator will be in touch to discuss options. We are determined to get the books into the hands of the readers where they can have the most impact and these online events are helping us to achieve that goal.

Supporting you around deadlines

Please be assured of our understanding and flexibility with regard to any work you may be doing with us – from writing articles or manuscripts to helping with peer reviews or blog pieces. Whilst we will be endeavouring to keep things running as smoothly as possible and meeting our publication dates, we are also aware of the potential impact on your time and priorities.

We are sensitive to the uncertainty everyone is still facing as well as practical issues such as health issues, childcare and other responsibilities. While our preference is to try and keep things on track where possible in order that publication of important research is not delayed, we of course appreciate that there will be other factors to consider. We want to offer our support where we can, so please keep in touch.

Buying our print and eBooks

We are continuing to supply print orders through our sales and distribution channels. We know that those networks are working hard to ensure that there is minimal disruption to operations despite the impact on the supply chain that many industries are facing. All our UK, US and international bookshops, library suppliers and online retailers are fully operational and orders can be placed through your normal channels as well as through our website. Full details on sales agents and distributors can be found here.

Please remember that all our books are available to buy in eBook formats, including ePub, and ePDF  through a host of eBook providers found here.

As we get used to our new ways of working, we will regularly update this page with any changes or BUP news but we hope that our entire community is safe and healthy. If there is anything we can do to help, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Many thanks for your support.