Mission

Wits University Press champions knowledge from and about Africa to local and global readers. Since 1922 we have been curating and publishing innovative research that informs debate for the greater good of society. If knowledge drives change, we are committed to publishing excellence and passionate about bringing writers with bold ideas and a progressive agenda to the world. Our mission supports the University of the Witwatersrand’s vision to promote research excellence, public engagement and social justice.

African Content. Global Impact.

History

Wits University Press is the oldest university press in South Africa. It was established in the young mining town of Johannesburg when a proposal for the formation of ‘The University of the Witwatersrand Press’ was accepted by then Principal, Jan H. Hofmeyr, at the University of the Witwatersrand’s (Wits) first ordinary meeting of Senate in 1922, the year in which the South African School of Mines and Technology was awarded university status. The press’ history has been closely aligned with that of its parent institution as well as the South African social and cultural landscape, and its focus has remained the dissemination of ideas about and from its location in Johannesburg at the southern tip of Africa.

The establishment of a press was important in establishing the new university’s institutional credentials, and so the University of the Witwatersrand Press soon became an outlet for important research carried out by Wits academics, and later by authors from around the world. Its role has over the years adapted to external social and publishing conditions, but the link to Wits’ evolving research strategies has remained.

The early 2000s saw a boom period for South African publishing, and the renamed Wits University Press (WUP) exploited these commercial opportunities with a ‘mixed’ publishing model of scholarly, trade and cross-over titles, the latter of which are research-based but aimed at an informed lay reader.

Publishing programme

With more challenging general trade conditions emerging after 2008, WUP is again focusing more strongly on its mission-based scholarly publishing programme that disseminates South African peer-reviewed research, in the form of monographs and edited collections, to local and international audiences. This strategy is in line with Wits’ mission to be a research-intensive university that aims for global recognition while remaining responsive to local issues. WUP’s core scholarly list of peer-reviewed books is supplemented with co-publications, a strong theatre list, and an impressive backlist of South African classics that is in the process of being digitised.

In support of its mission for global dissemination of South / African research, WUP has developed a comprehensive digital publishing and dissemination policy. This strategy benefits from the growth in research from Africa (approx. 3% of international research) and South Africa (almost 1%) more specifically[1], with the aim of influencing global debates about the continent and the Global South more broadly. To this end, it works with a number of book distributors and digital aggregators.

In support of the digital strategy, WUP is leading a project to develop African Scholarship Online, an index of Southern African scholarly books (ASO). Funded by South Africa’s National Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS), the aim of the Index is to drive international discoverability of all peer-reviewed publications from the region.

[1] Universities South Africa. 2019. South Africa’s Scholarly Presses: Essential to the knowledge enterprise. Pg 6.

Ambassador for the University of the Witwatersrand

WUP has produced some remarkable achievements over the years, adding value to scholarly publication and debate in South Africa.

It acts as an ambassador for Wits and is arguably South Africa’s leading university press with the highest book publication output. It contributes to Wits’ vision to be a research intensive university: around 50% of the press’ authors are witsup-based academics, largely in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Many of its recent titles are listed in both the Web of Science and Scopus Book Citation Indexes.

WUP attends international and local book fairs and conferences each year, at which it exhibits under the university’s name; these include the Frankfurt Book Fair, African Studies Association (USA) and the ASAUK.

Associations

In addition to being an active member of the Publishers’ Association of South Africa , WUP joined the Association of University Presses (AUP) in 2017. It has strong links with both the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) and Universities South Africa (USAf), which comprises the vice-chancellors of higher education institutions in South Africa.