Open Science Statement

Open science aims to make scientific research freely available to scholars and society. In line with this principle, Leuven University Press takes several initiatives to open up its scholarly publications and to promote digital interconnectivity.

True to its mission as a not-for-profit academic publisher, Leuven University Press fully embraces Open Access. Being able to share scientific insights with readers worldwide and giving them access to new knowledge, unhindered by financial thresholds, constitutes the pinnacle of scientific publishing.

Leuven University Press’s open access publishing program enables the publication of new titles that are either born or delayed open access. All open access books are hosted on four major digital library platforms – JSTOR, Project Muse, OAPEN, Open Research Library – and are listed in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB). Leuven University Press partners with the KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Access, Open Book Collective (COPIM), JSTOR Path to Open, and Knowledge Unlatched (KU) for financial support to open up its frontlist. The press’s back catalogue is gradually being opened up via Google Books.

Open science depends on high-quality metadata. In response to this need, Leuven University Press is strongly committed to strengthening the digital interconnectivity of research output and scholars in a number of ways. All published digital content is assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) provided by CrossRef. We link our published content to the ORCID iD of the authors or editors associated with it. Metadata is submitted to a range of bibliographic data service providers. Via Leuven University Press’s landing page on the research and discovery platform ScienceOpen, the Altmetric data of our books can be consulted.

Open science is about making knowledge accessible to all of society. Through our partnership with The Wikipedia Library, our entire collection of paywalled e-books is made available for Wikipedia editors, thus allowing Leuven University Press to contribute to the global dissemination and democratization of reliable knowledge. In addition, Leuven UP invests in making its e-content accessible to persons with a variety of disabilities. For more details: check our statement on Accessibility.