Publishing is one of Europe’s largest cultural industries, yet university presses and institutional publishers remain largely invisible in data, policy, and infrastructure debates. While commercial scholarly publishing is extensively documented, the diverse, non-profit, institutionally embedded publishing landscape is not. To address this gap, the Association of European University Presses launches a Europe-wide survey mapping university presses and other institutional publishers to better understand how institutional publishers operate, fund themselves, support researchers, and engage with Open Access – particularly Diamond OA. By contributing data, publishers help build the evidence base needed for better policy recognition, sustainable infrastructure design, and future European collaborations.
Great initiative and much needed. Completing the form on behalf of our editorial services.
Just a reflection (especially in this case where we are talking about infrastructures)… Google Forms has been used for a form hosted in the USA (note the flag next to the URL). Moreover, even if the data happened to end up in the EU by chance (no one can guarantee where the data currently resides in the clouds of the Big Five), the core issue is that Google’s headquarters are in the USA, meaning it is obliged by the “Patriot Act” to hand over data to the US government if requested, which directly contradicts the GDPR.
Without falling into dogmatism, when alternatives exist, it would be good to align our actions with the discourse we promote.
thank you for raising this issue and of course you are right and maybe that is a typical tragedy of the commons, explaining the success of the large, commercial, US based data services. AEUP is a small association and all this work around connecting university presses is on top of day jobs, meaning there is limited time to search for feasible alternatives and become fluent in those non-proprietary software. Due to pressing deadlines we went the easy (and wrong) road of G**gle Forms.
Thank you so much for taking the criticism in such a constructive way.
In fact, I was hesitating whether to write, as whenever there’s a good initiative, some “purist” (in this case, me) turns up complaining about a comma :-D, but since the topic under discussion is infrastructure, I felt it was relevant.
I understand the resource constraints, but for next time, I’d like to share a free and sovereign alternative with you: EUSurvey - Welcome
European University Press Survey 2026 – AEUP
