108 Publishers From 26 Countries Sign New University Press Charter

A new University Press Charter has been launched, and 108 publishers from 26 countries had signed on by the time Publishing Perspectives reported it. The charter was launched during University Press Week, which runs from 9 to 13 November.

University presses are publishers linked to universities. They print scholarly books and journals, the specialist works that researchers write for other researchers, students and teachers. The charter is a shared statement of principles, not a law, so publishers sign up to it voluntarily.

The charter was founded by seven university presses. Cambridge University Press and Bristol University Press led the collaboration. Its roots lie in talks between institutions in the UK and North America in summer 2026. The Association of University Presses hosts and supports it. It has been translated into French, Portuguese and Welsh, so that publishers and readers beyond English-speaking markets can read it in their own language.

Signatories make four main commitments. They pledge to put quality, integrity and trust at the heart of scholarly publishing. They agree to be more open about the services they offer, what those services are worth, and the publishing choices they make. They promise to develop responsible approaches to artificial intelligence, the computer systems that generate text and images. And they commit to widening who takes part in creating and sharing knowledge around the world.

Each of those promises is broad, and the charter does not set out how they will be measured. What it does provide is a common set of words that publishers on different continents have agreed to stand behind. For a reader who borrows a monograph from a library, a monograph being a book-length study by a single author, the charter is about the books that reach the shelf and the trust that goes with them.

The signatures are the measure of the moment so far. Each one is a publisher saying the same thing in public.