Philosophy of Science move to CUP

As noted in our announcement that Philosophy of Science will be moving to Cambridge University Press, the PSA has had a long and excellent partnership with the University of Chicago Press, not only as publisher of our journal but also managing our membership. The University of Chicago Press has played a pivotal role shaping history and philosophy of science as a field, and as publisher of Philosophy of Science we especially appreciate their superb production standards and editorial support. So you might ask – as several of you have done – why we chose Cambridge University Press as our publishing partner at this juncture. 
 
In answer, let me first say that this move was by no means a foregone conclusion. It’s the outcome of a two-year process of reviewing our options undertaken by a hard-working journal publisher search committee and the Governing Board. Journal publishing is tremendously volatile at the moment, given open access mandates that have profound implications for societies like the PSA, so the Governing Board endorsed a plan to invite proposals from a number of presses with a strong track record publishing philosophy journals, including the University of Chicago Press.
 
In the end we settled on Cambridge University Press for several reasons, chief among them being their approach to navigating what “a sustainable transition to open access” that will serve humanities journals and associations. In this connection they’re developing a program of consortium-based “Read & Publish” agreements, as well as offering generous repository policies and free (view only) online access to version-of-record articles published in Philosophy of Science through Cambridge CoreShare. They are, in addition, committed to meeting our expectations for high quality editorial support and production, and they support the same submission system as the editorial office has been using for some time now, so we anticipate a seamless transition where the review process is concerned. Finally, we determined that it is time for the PSA to take over management of our membership, something that the arrangement with Cambridge University Press facilitates.
 
We thank everyone who advised us in the course of this long process of review and deliberation. We look forward to working with Cambridge University Press and hope all of you will help us make this transition a success.
 
Alison Wylie
President, Philosophy of Science Association
 
Journal Publisher Search Committee: Alison Wylie (chair); Hasok Chang, Sabina Leonelli, and Michael Weisberg.