At UC Press, open access—the free, immediate, unrestricted, online access to peer-reviewed research and scholarly work—is central to our mission to drive progressive change by seeking out and cultivating the brightest minds and giving them voice, reach, and impact. Who benefits from open access? Everyone. Authors can share their work with global audiences without cost barriers. Libraries can provide their patrons with a wide range of content more affordably. Readers gain easy access to the information they need, when they need it. And when paired with Creative Commons licenses allowing liberal sharing and adapting of these outputs of scholarly research, research itself benefits.

Open access programs at UC Press

Collabra 
Collabra is University of California Press's open access journal program. The journals feature the core values of:

• Fairness in pricing and business practice

• Scientific and scholarly rigor—defined by each community

• Transparency and openness, in data, methods, competing interests—defined by each community

• Putting the academic community first—which community primarily creates and maintains a journal’s profile and identify

The Collabra program currently publishes two open access journals, Collabra: Psychology and Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, with plans for continued expansion and journal acquistion.

Both journals not only share research but also the value contributed by the research community through the review process. Instead of UC Press retaining all funds generated from author APCs, our pay-it-forward model shares value with reviewers and editors for their work on the journal. They can opt to pass on their earnings either to an APC waiver fund that benefits other authors or their institution's open access fund. Learn more about Collabra publishing initatives here.

• Collabra: Psychology

Collabra: Psychology has 7 sections, 6 representing the broad field of psychology—Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology, Personality Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Developmental Psychology, and Organizational Behavior—and a 7th highlighted focus area of Methodology and Research Practice. The journal is devoted to scientific, methodological, and ethical rigor. While the editors and reviwers do not attempt to predict a submission's impact to the field, nor employ any topic bias in accepting articles, they will check for rigorously and transparently conducted, statistically sound, adequately powered, and fairly analyzed research worthy of inclusion in the scholarly record. This is a focus on more objective acceptance criteria, and the bar is set high. Collabra: Psychology supports the principles of Open Science, including a thorough transparency and openness policy, and an option for authors to choose open peer review. Learn more about Collabra: Psychology at collabra.org.

• Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene
  

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene publishes original research reporting on new knowledge of the Earth's physical, chemical, and biological systems; interactions between human and natural systems; and steps that can be taken to mitigate and adapt to global change. Elementa reports on fundamental advancements in research organized initially into 6 knowledge domains, embracing the concept that basic knowledge can foster sustainable solutions for society. The journal's ultimate objective is to accelerate scientific solutions to the challenges presented by our new era, in which human activity has become the dominant influence on our climate and environment. Learn more about Elementa at elementascience.org. 

Luminos
Monographs are the cornerstone of scholarly research in the humanities and social sciences, but have long been under siege. Shrinking library budgets and rising costs result in higher prices. The upshot is that publishers must reduce the number of titles they publish, regardless of the merits of the work. Luminos is University of California Press’s open access response to this challenged monograph landscape. With the same high standards for selection, peer review, production, and marketing as our traditional program, Luminos is a transformative model, built as a partnership where costs and benefits are shared. Learn more about Luminos at LuminosOA.org.

See our full list of Luminos titles below or visit LuminosOA.org to read these books now.