UC Press is an autonomous unit of the University of California’s Office of the President. It is not associated with any one campus of the University. As the nonprofit publisher of the University of California system, our mission is to disseminate scholarship of enduring value to multiple audiences. In publishing for diverse groups, University of California Press supports the University’s mandates for research, teaching, and public service. Director Lynne Withey reports to the Provost for Academic Affairs.

The UC Press Foundation is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The foundation was established in 1980 (as the Associates of the University of California Press) to raise funds to support the work of UC Press. The Foundation is guided by a Board of Trustees made up of cultural and civic leaders from Northern and Southern California.

The Board of Directors is a governing board appointed by the Provost of Academic Affairs to oversee UC Press’s finances and operations. The Board of Directors consists of University of California Office of the President executives, publishing leaders, the co-chairs of UC Press’s Editorial Committee, and the chair and vice-chair of the Foundation Board of Trustees. The Editorial Committee includes twenty distinguished faculty representing all UC campuses and is appointed by the Academic Senate of the University of California to review and approve every project for publication under the imprint of University of California Press.

University presses make available to students, scholars, and the broader public the full range of research, intellectual endeavor, and artistic creativity undertaken in educational and cultural organizations around the world. Driven by the mission of promoting and preserving scholarship rather than increasing the bottom line, university presses play a critical role in disseminating great ideas. For more information, visit the website of the Association of American University Presses.

University of California Press is among the six largest university publishers in the United States. Its peers include the presses of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, and the University of Chicago. Among this group, UC Press is the only press associated with a public university and the only one located west of the Mississippi.

Each year UC Press publishes approximately 200 new books and 40 multi-issue journals. All publications undergo a rigorous peer review process that includes vetting by the acquisitions editor, at least two outside specialists, and our Editorial Committee. While some UC Press publications result from unsolicited proposals, the majority of our books are sought out by our editors.

UC Press books serve audiences of general readers, students, scholars, policymakers, and activists. Our books are sold to retail outlets and libraries throughout the world.

UC Press attracts manuscripts from the world’s foremost scholars, writers, artists, and public intellectuals. About one-fourth of UC Press authors are affiliated with the University of California.

All UC Press journals are published in digital format. Nearly 2,000 books are available in digital format in collaboration with the California Digital Library (CDL), including the University of California Publications series in linguistics, entomology, geological sciences, and zoology. In addition, UC Press is involved in a variety of digital initiatives such as the Mark Twain Project Online and the Caravan project.

UC Press’s revenues come primarily from sales of our books and journals, while University subsidy accounts for a small percentage. Generous philanthropic gifts from individuals and organizations fill the critical gap.

A portion of UC Press’s publishing program is devoted to specialized scholarship; these books have small print runs and therefore rarely recover their production costs. Other books with complex production specifications, such as those in the arts and sciences, are expensive to produce. UC Press is dedicated to reaching the audiences for which its books are intended; pricing the books for their markets often means that subsidy is required to break even.

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