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.
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.
The Concept and Measurement of Violence Against Women and Men
Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. The book is a guide to how the measurement of violence can be best achieved. It shows how to make femicide, rape, domestic violence, and FGM visible in official statistics and offers practical guidance on definitions, indicators and coordination mechanisms.
Legal Aid in Crisis
Assessing the Impact of Reform
This book is the first to evaluate the recent reforms of UK legal aid from a social policy perspective and assess their impact on family law courts and advocacy. It argues that the reforms effectively ‘delawyerise’ disputes, producing a more inquisitorial justice system and impacting the litigants, court system, staff and process.
Demystifying Evaluation
Practical Approaches for Researchers and Users
Demystifying evaluation is an accessible introductory guide explaining the options open to evaluators and how to make appropriate choices of research methods and covering issues such as managing expectations of evaluation, quantitative and qualitative methods, engaging stakeholders and providing action-orientated approaches to help end-users.
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.
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.
A Philosophy of the Social Construction of Crime
This book situates the social construction of crime and criminal behaviour within the philosophical context of phenomenology and explores how these constructions inform, and justify, the policies employed to address them. It is essential reading for academics and students interested in social theory and theories of criminology.
Medical Regulation, Fitness to Practice and Revalidation
A Critical Introduction
This topical and authoritative book examines how the regulation of doctors has been modernised by the introduction of the quality assurance process medical revalidation. In doing so, it questions if there indeed is evidence to support the argument that revalidation serves the public interest by ensuring individual doctors are fit to practice.
Female Serial Killers in Social Context
Criminological Institutionalism and the Case of Mary Ann Cotton
This book explores how institutions such as the family, economy and religion shaped the environment and social integration of 19th century serial killer Mary Ann Cotton. It will equip criminologists with a methodological toolkit for performing institutional analysis.
Islamophobia
Lived Experiences of Online and Offline Victimisation
Islamophobia examines the online and offline experiences of hate crime against Muslims, and the impact upon victims, their families and wider communities. It includes the voices of victims themselves which leads to strategies for future prevention.