Publication Guide
Tsinghua University Press (TUP) is the publishing house of Tsinghua University, China's leading engineering university. Founded in June 1980 and headquartered in Beijing, TUP publishes thousands of books a year alongside a focused portfolio of roughly 30+ English-language STM journals concentrated in nanoscience, materials, mechanical engineering, computer science, and the built environment. Since 2022 those journals have been distributed through SciOpen, TUP's own open-access publishing platform, which now hosts 200+ journals when partner and society titles are included.
For international authors, TUP matters chiefly because of a handful of genuinely high-profile venues: Nano Research (one of the most-cited nanoscience journals worldwide, fully open access since January 2025), Journal of Advanced Ceramics, Friction, Tsinghua Science and Technology, Big Data Mining and Analytics, and Building Simulation. This guide covers how to pick the right TUP journal, what open access costs, how peer review works, and how to submit.
Which Tsinghua University Press journal fits your paper?
| You're most likely to... | Choose this route |
|---|---|
| Have a nanoscience or nanotechnology paper with broad significance | Nano Research - TUP's flagship, fully Gold OA since January 2025; previously co-published with Springer, so pre-2025 content sits on SpringerLink. |
| Work on ceramics or advanced inorganic materials | Journal of Advanced Ceramics - fully OA, published for the State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics Materials at Tsinghua. |
| Work on tribology, lubrication, or surface engineering | Friction - fully OA, double-blind peer review, backed by the State Key Laboratory of Tribology in Advanced Equipment. |
| Have a computer science, AI, or networking paper | Tsinghua Science and Technology (also distributed on IEEE Xplore) or Big Data Mining and Analytics for data-centric work. |
| Do graphics, visualization, or vision research | Computational Visual Media - fully OA computer-graphics venue. |
| Model buildings, HVAC, or energy systems | Building Simulation - hybrid, co-published with Springer Nature. |
What Tsinghua University Press actually publishes
- Nanoscience and materials - Nano Research, Nano Research Energy, Journal of Advanced Ceramics, Friction. This cluster gives TUP its international citation profile.
- Computer science and data - Tsinghua Science and Technology, Big Data Mining and Analytics, Computational Visual Media, Complex System Modeling and Simulation, and related titles.
- Engineering and the built environment - Building Simulation, Communications in Transportation Research, Journal of Intelligent and Connected Vehicles.
- Books - TUP is one of China's largest university presses, releasing thousands of new book titles a year, mostly in Chinese; the journal program is the internationally visible arm.
Many TUP journals are published on behalf of Tsinghua's state key laboratories or Chinese learned societies, which is why several can subsidize publication fees.
Open access and APCs
Most of TUP's flagship English journals are fully Gold open access on SciOpen, typically under CC BY licences. Fee practice varies more than at large commercial publishers, and several sponsored titles currently charge authors nothing because a state key laboratory or society covers costs.
| Route | What it means at TUP |
|---|---|
| Gold OA (fully-OA journals) | The default for most SciOpen titles, including Nano Research (fully OA since January 2025), Journal of Advanced Ceramics, Friction, Tsinghua Science and Technology, and Computational Visual Media. |
| Sponsored / no-APC titles | Several journals have fees covered by their sponsoring lab or society - always confirm on the journal's own fees page before budgeting. |
| Hybrid | A few co-published titles, notably Building Simulation (with Springer Nature), offer OA per article alongside subscription access. |
| Green OA | Self-archiving of accepted manuscripts is generally permitted; check per-title policy. |
APC amounts are set per journal and revised periodically; TUP does not publish a single price list, so check the current fees page of your target journal and ask about waivers if you are in a low- or middle-income country.
Peer review process
- Models vary by title: Tsinghua Science and Technology and most CS titles use single-anonymized review; Friction runs double-blind review.
- Turnaround: the portfolio is competitive on speed - Tsinghua Science and Technology reports an average first decision of about 38 days, Friction about 45 days. Nano Research decisions typically take longer given volume and selectivity.
- Editorial boards are international, usually led by senior Tsinghua faculty with global co-editors.
How to submit
- Pick the journal on SciOpen and read its aims and scope - TUP journals are narrower in scope than mega-journals, so fit matters.
- Read the author guidelines for the specific title; reference style is typically a numbered Vancouver-type style (Chinese-language titles use GB/T 7714-2015).
- Prepare your manuscript using the journal's Word or LaTeX template on SciSpace.
- Submit via ScholarOne Manuscripts (Manuscript Central) - the major English titles, including Nano Research, Tsinghua Science and Technology, and Friction, all use ScholarOne portals linked from SciOpen.
- Track and revise through the same portal; accepted papers publish on SciOpen (and IEEE Xplore or SpringerLink where distribution deals apply).
Ethics and integrity
TUP journals follow COPE-aligned publication-ethics policies covering plagiarism screening, authorship, and retractions. As a university press owned by Tsinghua University, it is an established, non-predatory publisher; its flagship journals are indexed in Scopus and the Web of Science Core Collection, which independently vets titles. Data-availability expectations are set per journal, with materials- and code-sharing increasingly required in the nanoscience and CS titles.
