We know how hard our authors in HASS work to publish their research, particularly when REF plays such a vital role in academia these days. So the recent Times Higher Education article announcing that the World University Rankings for 2016-17 will include books and book chapters for the first time was greeted with great enthusiasm here at UWP.

The quite staggering stats are testimony to the vibrancy and significance of the research sector: THE’s data team confirmed that for the rankings, to be published this September, “a total of 11.9 million research publications (with more than 56 million citations) will be included in the analysis. Of this total, some 528,000 books and book chapters published during the five-year period from 2011 to 2015 will be included in the analysis for the first time. In total, more than 69,000 books and 459,000 book chapters will be included in the rankings analysis. Of these, about 83,000 book chapters and 22,000 books are in the arts and humanities, while 160,000 chapters and almost 29,000 books are in the social sciences. In addition, some 70,000 chapters, and 11,000 books are classified as business and economics.”

This is a great step forward in giving full recognition for arts and humanities, and for the authors of those exceptional numbers of books and book chapters.

Sarah Lewis, Head of Commissioning