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.
Enabling Participatory Planning
Planning Aid and Advocacy in Neoliberal Times
How to Build Houses and Save the Countryside
Focusing on house building and conservation politics in England, Spiers uses his considerable experience and extensive research to demonstrate why the current model doesn’t work, and why there needs to be both planning reform and a more active role for the state, including local government.
Payment by Results and Social Impact Bonds
Outcome-Based Payment Systems in the UK and US
Repealing the 8th
Reforming Irish Abortion Law
Irish law only currently allows for abortion where the life of the pregnant woman is at risk. A constitutional referendum will be held in 2018 to liberalise abortion law. This book offers practical proposals for policymakers and advocates, including model legislation, making it an essential campaigning tool leading up to the referendum.
Regulating Police Detention
Voices from behind Closed Doors
Custody visitors are volunteers who make unannounced visits to police custody blocks to check on the welfare of detainees. However, there is a fundamental power imbalance between the police and these visitors. This timely book offers detailed proposals for radically reforming custody visiting to make it an effective regulator of police behaviour.
Social Innovation and Social Policy
Theory, Policy and Practice
Pioneering Ethics in a Longitudinal Study
The Early Development of the ALSPAC Ethics and Law Committee
An examination of the early work of the innovative Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children Ethics and Law Committee. It will help anyone involved in other cohort studies to understand how ethical policies evolve.
Unravelling Europe's 'Migration Crisis'
Journeys Over Land and Sea
This important new book provides a framework for understanding the dynamics underpinning recent unprecedented levels of migration across, and loss of life in, the Mediterranean, casting new light on the ‘migration crisis’ and challenging politicians, policy makers and the media to rethink their understanding of why and how people move.
Environment in the Lives of Children and Families
Perspectives from India and the UK
Based on involved creative, qualitative work with families in India and the UK who live in different contexts, this book illuminates how environmental practices are negotiated within families, and how they relate to values, identities, and society.
Rethinking Poverty
What Makes a Good Society?
This book calls for a bold forward-looking social policy that addresses continuing austerity, under-resourced organisations and a lack of social solidarity. Based on a research programme by the Webb Memorial Trust, a key theme is power which shows that the way forward is to increase people’s sense of agency in building the society that they want.
What Death Means Now
Thinking Critically about Dying and Grieving
Bringing 25 years of research and teaching in the sociology of death and dying to this important book, Tony Walter engages critically with key questions around this universal fact.
Consulting Skills for Social Researchers
This practitioner-oriented text is the first to help social researchers define research projects, manage the social research process, engage with stakeholders and influence change. It will be invaluable for all those commissioning, managing and conducting social research.