EXCLUSIVE – Amy Brand: Publishing for a new era - Research Information

"MIT Press has a well-earned reputation as one of the sector’s most innovative university presses. Whether through Direct to Open, experiments with digital textbooks or new approaches to open scholarship, innovation has become a defining characteristic of the organisation.

But Amy rejects the idea that innovation is a luxury enabled by financial security. In fact, she argues precisely the opposite. For university presses, whose financial margins are often tighter than their commercial counterparts, that presents a paradox. Resources are needed to innovate, but standing still may prove even more expensive.

Amy believes publishers have to accept that reality: “The climate, ongoing changes and challenges that we’re all working through necessitate ongoing innovation. Either you take a leading role and innovate, or you’re just left behind.”

Perhaps no initiative illustrates MIT Press’s willingness to challenge established publishing models more than Direct to Open. Launched in 2021 to make scholarly monographs openly available regardless of an author’s institutional funding, the programme has become one of the most closely watched experiments in academic publishing.

Amy is unequivocal in describing it as a success – but perhaps not for the reason many might expect. The real measure, she says, was never simply whether it worked for MIT Press.

“Our goal was… the impact that it had beyond MIT across the community,” she says. “It engendered a lot of copycat models… and that’s really what we wanted to see.”

That willingness to encourage imitation reflects something particular to scholarly publishing. Despite competing for authors, readers and institutional budgets, many organisations continue to collaborate extensively in pursuit of wider goals such as open scholarship and research integrity.

Amy is also refreshingly candid about what did not work – looking back, she believes MIT Press underpriced the model and is now working to ensure the program has the necessary financial infrastructure for long-term stability."