About the Press

The Press was introduced in Coimbra in 1530, a little late as several universities in Europe had been looking for printing houses or printers to work in since the end of the 15th century. The University of Coimbra sought to equip itself with the printing facilities indispensable for the service and dissemination of culture, after its definitive establishment in the city in 1537, by decision of King John III.

 

 

Editorial Policy

In order to fulfil the objectives established in the "Regulations" of the Coimbra University Press, the following general principles of editorial policy will be observed:

1. IUC's activity will be developed in the cultural, artistic, scientific and pedagogical-didactic domains;

2. It is IUC's objective to publish works that represent an added value of a didactic and/or scientific nature and are part of the editorial objectives of the Press;

3. Priority will be given to works of a pedagogical and didactic nature, namely textbooks for university teaching;

4. Publications will be organised in series with a broad scope and an appropriate designation (e.g. Teaching, Research, Documents), and in collections (e.g. "The State of the Art");

5. The series and collections will have distinctive elements;

6. The works to be edited will reach the IUC through a public request for submission of works or by invitation to authors to write texts on a theme deemed relevant taking into account the editorial objectives of the Press. The area of translation of fundamental works (reference or didactic) not yet published or in need of revision will also be encouraged;

7. The editions will be, in principle, in Portuguese language, following the orthographic agreement of 1990. Foreign languages will be used according to the author and the distribution space that can be reached;

8. The evaluation of the absolute and relative merit of the works to be published will be made by personalities (at least two for each work) of recognised competence in the area of the work in question. The personalities may come from the University of Coimbra or from other national or foreign institutions;

9. IUC editions are published in open access and are subject, in principle, to the setting of the cover price. The production should be profitable and take into account the conditions of the specific book market. The best forms of distribution and marketing (contracts, partnerships and/or direct distribution) will be sought;

10. IUC may establish protocols with other commercial or university publishers, with the aim of improving implementation in target markets;

11. The IUC will develop a catalogue of publications available for marketing;

12. The UC has a shop where some of IUC's publications are displayed for sale to the public.