Research in publishing and book history
Colleagues in the Centre were returned as part of the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021), in subjects including English Language and Literature; Business; and Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies. The performance by the University in English Language and Literature was particularly notable with 93% of the research assessed to be ‘world leading or internationally excellent’ by a panel of global experts.
Research in the Centre is carried out in a range of interdisciplinary areas including contemporary publishing, book consumption and the life cycle of books, media convergence, digital developments, scholarly communications, post-colonial publishing, early twentieth-century publishing history (including publishing in World War One), and late twentieth and early twenty-first century publishing history.
We welcome proposals for PhD research from both UK and international students.
Recent research activity
Publication of Social Media Marketing for Book Publishers (Routledge, 2022), by Miriam Johnson and Helen Simpson
Publication of Is This a Book? (CUP, 2022), by Angus Phillips and Miha Kovač
Publication of The Oxford Handbook of Publishing (OUP, 2019), edited by Angus Phillips and Michael Bhaskar
Publication of the sixth edition of Inside Book Publishing (Routledge 2019), by Angus Phillips and Giles Clark
Publication of Print Cultures (Red Globe Press, 2019), edited by Caroline Davis
Conferences hosted such as the SHARP conference in 2008 and Publishing for Social Change in 2009 - see the forthcoming conference on publishing studies, By the Book8
Angus Phillips is the editor of the premier publishing journal, Logos
PhD and MPhil supervision
Length of study: minimum of three years full time and four years part time.
The normal entry requirement for taking the direct route to PhD study is a recent master’s degree in a discipline appropriate to the proposed research. The master’s needs to have included research training and a research project. We welcome applications from both UK and international students.
The Culture and History of Publishing
Late nineteenth-, twentieth- and twenty-first-century print culture, publishing and book history. Examples of specific research areas might include authorship, reading and literary sociology, contemporary fiction and literary prizes, and the impact of editorial and technological issues on culture and society.
Contemporary Publishing
Studies of contemporary publishing and bookselling in local, regional and national contexts: strategy, policy, copyright, marketing, digital developments, authorship, readership, issues of development and publishing. Geographical areas (outside the UK) where there is particular staff expertise include: Africa, China, Europe.
Scholarly Communications
As a result of the arrival of two members of the CIBER Research group, Professor David Nicholas and Anthony Watkinson, at OICP we are able to supervise PhDs in a whole range of important scholarly communication topics, such as scholarly social networks (e.g. ResearchGate, Academia.edu), early career researchers, predatory publishing, peer review, scholarly impact, trustworthiness, authorship, scholarly journals and monographs, open access and science, scholarly reputation and metrics. If you are interested and would like to discuss this more please email Professor David Nicholas at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
