Bristol University Press (BUP) is the not-for-profit scholarly press of the University of Bristol, launched in October 2016 and built on the foundation of Policy Press, which Alison Shaw founded within the university's Faculty of Social Sciences and Law in 1996. Policy Press continues as BUP's social-policy and practice imprint. Together the two imprints publish around 22 peer-reviewed journals and roughly 200 books a year, concentrated in the social sciences: social policy, sociology, criminology, politics and international relations, economics and society, ageing and gerontology, business and management, environment and sustainability, law, international development, and science and technology studies.

BUP is small by commercial-publisher standards, and that is the point. Its list is deliberately narrow, its editorial teams are close to their scholarly communities, and much of its output is explicitly aimed at influencing policy and practice as well as adding to the academic literature. If your paper sits at the intersection of research and policy - inequality, welfare, care, governance, public administration - it is worth a serious look.

• Journals - around 22 peer-reviewed titles across the social sciences, most launched or acquired since the 1990s. The portfolio is still growing; several titles were founded in the last decade.
• Books and monographs - roughly 200 a year, across research monographs, textbooks, edited collections and shorter policy-facing formats.
• Policy Press imprint - the practice-oriented arm, publishing for social workers, policy professionals, NGOs and public-sector readers as well as academics.
• Bristol University Press imprint - the broader academic list, covering politics, sociology, criminology, business, law and economics.

BUP supports three open-access routes:

• Gold OA - immediate open access on publication, funded by an article processing charge. Several BUP journals are fully open access; the rest offer gold OA on an article-by-article basis.
• Hybrid OA - pay-to-publish open access within an otherwise subscription journal.
• Green OA (self-archiving) - deposit of the accepted manuscript in an institutional or subject repository, subject to the per-journal embargo stated in BUP's author policies.

APCs are revised periodically and differ between titles, so treat the range above as an orientation and confirm the exact fee on the journal's own open-access page before you submit.

BUP journals use double-anonymized peer review as the default: reviewers do not see author identities and authors do not see reviewer identities. Practical consequences for your submission:

• Strip identifying information from the manuscript file and put it in a separate title page.
• Anonymize self-citations in the text ("Author, 2021") where they would give you away.
• Expect two or more external reviewers, with an editor or associate editor arbitrating.

Turnaround varies by title and by how quickly reviewers can be secured; a small press with specialist reviewer pools can be quick or slow depending on the field. Check the journal's own page for any published timing commitments.

1. Choose the journal. Read a recent issue - BUP titles have distinct scopes and several overlap only slightly.
2. Read the journal's instructions for authors. Word limits, structure and referencing expectations are set per title.
3. Format your references. Harvard and Chicago are the styles you will most often be asked for across the BUP list; the journal page is authoritative.
4. Prepare an anonymized manuscript plus a separate title page with author details and affiliations.
5. Submit through ScholarOne Manuscripts, the submission platform used across BUP journals. Create an account, upload your files, and suggest reviewers if the journal invites it.
6. Decide your OA route at acceptance - gold, hybrid or green - and check whether your institution's agreement or your funder covers the charge.

Bristol University Press is a member of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and follows COPE guidance on authorship disputes, corrections, expressions of concern and retractions. Expect the standard requirements: declared competing interests, named funding sources, ethical approval statements for research involving human participants, and a data-availability statement where the field expects one. Simultaneous submission to more than one journal is not permitted.