Peer review

All book manuscripts that are submitted to be published with UGP undergo thorough quality control.

First steps

Authors/editors receive an open access books toolkit, to enable them to learn about the process of open access publishing. The toolkit also provides information about Creative Commons licensing, under which all books will be published.

A first review, to assess formal criteria and the general quality of content, is conducted based on the book proposal form and the manuscript (if already available). The UGP Board and trained staff members, who are either publishing experts or librarians, are responsible for the first review. Manuscripts might be subject to a similarity analysis check. The initial review determines whether the manuscript can be submitted for peer review, whether the quality is sufficient for a popular scientific publication, or whether the proposal should be rejected.

External peer review

Publications that will undergo a formal peer review are submitted to two independent and external experts. Reviewers are selected based on their area of expertise in relation to the content of the book. To this end, UGP uses bibliometric analysis as a starting point. Reviewers are invited to comment either on the whole book or on chapters in an edited collection. The reviewers’ comments will be assessed by UGP’s Board and are shared anonymously with the authors/editors. UGP staff ensure that authors and editors meet the requirements resulting from the review process. If authors or editors are unwilling to meet these requirements publications can only appear as a popular scientific publication.

The UGP Board will take a decision about accepting, revising or declining the book.

Publications of UGP are published open access on the press’s website.

The UGP Board and staff continually discuss means to improve the procedures for quality control. The review process is evaluated regularly.