Shorts
Our Shorts are between 20-50,000 words and are available as e-books and in print with a shorter production schedule.
We publish two types of Shorts under both Bristol University Press and Policy Press:
Research: books providing the latest cutting-edge or topical research findings (longer than an article but shorter than a monograph) publishing in hardback for an international market with a lower priced eBook which allows for individual purchase;
Insights: books covering issues of wide interest and where a timely intervention is likely to attract substantial media coverage and reach a broad non-specialist audience, these accessibly-written Shorts enable authors to join the debate authoritatively and quickly and are published as low-price paperbacks and eBooks.
Policy Press also publish the following Shorts:
Policy and practice: as part of our commitment to impact and engaging with a wider audience, we also publish ‘policy and practice’ Shorts where there is support with dissemination through Open Access, organisational links, course buy-in or other direct routes to the policy and practice audience.
Written by experts in their fields, these formats provide high quality, peer reviewed content quickly and are available for both personal purchase and for libraries and institutions through the usual channels.
Download a Shorts proposal form, including detailed guidelines, here.
What Works in Improving Gender Equality
International Best Practice in Childcare and Long-term Care Policy
EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book provides an accessible analysis of what gender equality means and how we can achieve it by adapting best practices in childcare and long term care policies from other countries.
Engaging with Policy, Practice and Publics
Intersectionality and Impact
Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book examines the increasing importance of engagement with non-academic groups and actors in the co-production of knowledge and real-world influence in academic research.
Living Data
Making Sense of Health Biosensing
This book critiques the popular claim that ‘more information’ equates to ‘better health’ and explores the potential challenges related to people’s changing relationships with traditional health systems as access to, and control over data shifts.
Good Finance
Why We Need a New Concept of Finance
Presenting a sharp critique of extreme financialization and the economics profession’s continuing blind faith in the efficient market hypothesis this book considers how our current concept of finance can be revised for the good of society.
Social Research with Children and Young People
A Practical Guide
This book provides a practical and concise introductory guide to doing research with children and young people, outlining the benefits and challenges along with key ethical, methodological and other considerations. Throughout, there are practical examples, checklists and top tips to aid the reader.
Prison Suicide
What Happens Afterwards?
Prison suicides reached a record high in 2016 in England and Wales. Provides the first detailed case study of the investigations that follow prison suicides with findings relevant at a global level.
Making Waves behind Bars
The Prison Radio Association
Focusing on one of the most interesting developments in UK prisons over the past 10 years, this book examines the early history of the Prison Radio Association and the formation of the first national radio station for prisoners. It shows how a relatively small-scale media activism came to be an intrinsic part of prison culture.
Borders, Mobility and Belonging in the Era of Brexit and Trump
Using cutting-edge academic work on migration and citizenship to address three themes central to current debates – borders and walls, mobility and travel, and belonging - the authors provide new insights into the politics of migration and citizenship in the UK and the US.
Comedy and Critique
Stand-up Comedy and the Professional Ethos of Laughter
Comedy and Critique explores British professional stand-up comedy in the wake of the Alternative Comedy movement of the late twentieth century, seeing it as an extension of the politics of the New Left: standing up for oneself as anti-racist, feminist and open to a queering of self and social institutions.
Life in the Debt Trap
Stories of Children and Families Struggling with Debt
The first hand stories in this book, collected through The Children's Society's campaign The Debt Trap, offer a unique understanding of life for families and children fighting a daily battle against poverty and debt.
Squaring the Circle on Brexit
Could the Norway Model Work?
Two preeminent Norwegian scholars of politics and law offer a comprehensive first-hand account of Norway’s relationship with the EU and how this affects the country’s legal and political system, setting out what Britain can learn from Norway’s experience and how transferable these lessons are.
Fake Goods, Real money
The Counterfeiting Business and its Financial Management
The books examines the financial and business structures of the counterfeiting business and considers how the internet and e-commerce present financial opportunities for counterfeiters. It explores ‘organised crime’ and criminal markets, digital technologies and cultural values and practices.