Enacting Our Values

The Association of University Presses (AUPresses) works to effectively represent our global membership and our core values of intellectual freedom, integrity, stewardship, and diversity and inclusion.

The 2019-2020 AUPresses Board of Directors sought to define what each of these core values means to our community and how each is enacted in university press publishing work. This value definition was presented to our wider membership during the 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting via a graphic illustration, a compass of co-equal, interrelated quadrants.

Intellectual Freedom

    • We promote the free exchange of ideas, the unfettered pursuit of scholarly inquiry, the emergence and evaluation of new theories, and the expansion of human knowledge.
    • We champion the freedom to think, research, publish, and read as pillars of an open and just society.

Integrity

    • We conduct our work ethically and honestly, earning and sustaining the trust of our authors, our readers, and our institutions.
    • We establish best practices in peer review to ensure rigor and reliability in the scholarly record.

Stewardship

    • We invest resources mindfully in the development and dissemination of scholarship, respecting the fundamental labor of publishing and conscious of our responsibilities as global citizens.
    • We amplify authors’ voices, and work to advance and preserve an inclusive scholarly record.

Diversity and Inclusion

    • We strive to give voice to the breadth of human knowledge and experience.
    • We recognize, value, and encourage diversity among our community and partners as part of our ongoing commitment to equity, justice, and inclusion.