Brill and Open Access

Abstract

An online conversation with two representatives of Brill, a publisher that is particularly strong in the Humanities and Social Sciences. A 340-year-old publishing house, Brill still primarily sells books and journals in a traditional manner, i.e. as hardcopies and online fulltexts behind a paywall. Currently, Brill has a total output of around 1,400 academic books per year. Just over 10% of these titles are published in Open Access thanks to authors (or their institutions) paying a Book Processing Charge (BPC). Among its 300+ peer-reviewed journals, approx. 10% are published according to the Diamond Open Access model, meaning that some sort of sponsorship allows Brill to offer its services with no author- or reader-facing charges. In the discussion, Open Research Officer Stephanie Veldman explains the economic mechanisms and strategic thinking behind Brill’s work in the field of open access. Publishing director for History, Social Sciences and Biology Arjan van Dijk highlights the author’s and editor’s perspectives, using the successful Journal of Jesuit Studies (launched in 2013) as a concrete example. Both Veldman and van Dijk see it as an important part of their mission to increase the proportion of books and journals that are published in open access. First published online: June 7, 2023.