Annual report: April 6th 2023 – April 5th 2024
2078 words | 8 minute read
Mattering Press is a UK registered charity, whose charitable object is focused on advancing understandings of Science and Technology Studies via its open access books. As such, we report annually to the Charity Commisison for England and Wales, in line with our financial year, which ends annually on April the 5th. We are strongly committed…Read more
Bullying and harassment policy
1796 words | 7 minute read
Everyone will be treated with dignity and respect at Mattering Press. Bullying and harassment of any kind are in no-one’s interest and will not be tolerated in the workplace; this includes bullying or harassment of Mattering Press staff, employees or volunteers. This policy applies to all Trustees, members, volunteers and staff, including those working away from…Read more
Complaints policy
483 words | 2 minute read
We take complaints very seriously. If you have a complaint about Mattering Press we want to hear about it and we will do our best to put it right. Our Complaints Procedure has the following goals:• To deal with complaints fairly, efficiently and effectively;• To ensure that all complaints are handled in a consistent manner…Read more
Serious incident policy
919 words | 3.5 minute read
Why this policy exists This policy covers serious incident reporting to the charity regulator, the Charity Commission (“the commission”), as it relates to Mattering Press. This policy provides Mattering Press with an effective and easy to follow process that closely follows the commission’s guidance. Scope This policy covers all activities of the charity and its operations. It…Read more
Trustee expenses policy
474 words | 2 minute read
The concept of unpaid trusteeship has been one of the defining characteristics of the charitable sector, contributing greatly to public confidence in charities. Individual Trustees should not be deterred from playing their full part because of incidental costs and trustees are entitled to have their expenses met from the funds of the charity. Expenses can…Read more
Conflict of interest policy
1671 words | 6.5 minute read
1 Introduction1.1 This policy (the Policy) applies to the charity trustees of Mattering Press (the Charity) and sets out guidance and procedures for identifying, monitoring and managing actual and potential conflicts of interest. 1.2 Conflicts of interests may arise where an individual’s personal or family interests and/or loyalties conflict with those of the Charity and…Read more
Reserves policy
39 words | 0.5 minute read
Mattering Press maintains the funds in its bank account at a level which would allow for a minimum of one year of ongoing activities, sufficient to cover wages and administration costs. Approved by the Mattering Press Trustees, 5th February 2025
Modern slavery policy
749 words | 3 minute read
Modern slavery is a crime and a violation of fundamental human rights. It takes various forms, such as slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour and human trafficking, all of which have in common the deprivation of a person’s liberty by another in order to exploit them for personal or commercial gain. Mattering Press has a…Read more
Precarity in scholar-led and marginalized open access publishing
1945 words | 7.5 minute read
Joe Deville, Mattering Press / Lancaster University / Open Book Collective Talk given on 17th September 2024 at the OASPA 2024 Conference, Lisbon, as part of a panel on ‘Open Access and Precarity in the Academic Landscape: Learning from the Experiences of Authors and Scholar-led Publishers’. The panel also included presentations from Dr Judith Fathallah…Read more
Encryption and Technologies of Power in a (Cyber-)War Torn World
1179 words | 4.5 minute read
By Ksenia Ermoshina and Francesca Musiani 19th April 2022 After three years of fieldwork and three years of writing, re-writing and polishing with the patient and kind help of Mattering Press editors, our book Concealing for Freedom: The Making of Encryption, Secure Messaging, and Digital Liberties has today been published. As we finished writing and…Read more
Two new books
300 words | 1.5 minute read
Boxes: A Field Guide Mattering Press is proud to announce the publication of a major new text, Boxes: A Field Guide, edited by Susanne Bauer, Martina Schlünder, and Maria Rentetzi. This book invites readers into a new field: box studies. It explores the ‘wildlife’ of box practices, in the process aiming to challenge our senses…Read more
Behind the scenes with the authors: Ghost Managed Medicine
1215 words | 4.5 minute read
Sergio Sismondo, author of Ghost Managed Medicine, takes us on a journey through the writing and development of his ideas. > What sparked your interest in studying the inner workings of big pharma? I owe my interest to some excellent presentations and papers by people like Jeremy Greene, Jennifer Fishman, Andy Lakoff and David Healy….Read more
Behind the scenes with the editors: Ghost Managed Medicine
876 words | 3.5 minute read
In this Q&A, editor Endre Dányi gives us a glimpse behind the scenes of the editing and production of Ghost Managed Medicine. > What sparked your interest in Ghost Managed Medicine (GMM) when you read the proposal? We really liked the idea of a book that focuses on an important and politically relevant topic through an…Read more
New Platforms for Open Access Book Distribution: A project update
981 words | 4 minute read
By Joe Deville & Julien McHardy [Originally published on the OpenAIRE website on 8th July 2018, at https://blogs.openaire.eu/?p=3546] The New Platforms project met for its final workshop on 25th June. The workshop was hosted by the Centre for Post-Digital Cultures at Coventry University. Present were representatives from most of the presses on the project, including Joe…Read more
Mattering marketing: Experiments in sharing
216 words | 1 minute read
This week we have launched Mattering Press’ first ever social media marketing campaign, which will open up our books to a larger audience and will offer existing readers new ways of engaging with the texts. Starting with Practising Comparison, and lasting for around a month, we will post key quotes and references from the various…Read more
Mattering Update
686 words | 2.5 minute read
Many things have happened in recent months. In this update, we gather some of these together. As you probably already know, in July 2016 our first four books were published. Many thanks to those of you who acted as authors, editors, reviewers, and early readers! In case you haven’t seen the final products yet, you…Read more
Constrained access – constrained voices
717 words | 3 minute read
A would-be South African author’s story. A few years ago, as a fresh PhD graduate (Open University, UK) I was encouraged by the examiners to pursue the possibility of book publication. The theoretical work of my PhD drew on STS; the empirical work on my ‘home’ context of South Africa. My ultimate aim was to talk back…Read more
After Barcelona
843 words | 3.5 minute read
It was a particularly busy summer for Mattering Press. In July this year, after four years of hard work establishing the press, we finally published our first four books. Our official launch was held on the 25th July in London – thanks, once again, to Tahani Nadim for her wonderful report about the event. But the launch…Read more
Open Access publishing and the future of the university
2618 words | 10 minute read
What untapped potential is there for universities and Open Access publishing initiatives to provide each other with mutual benefit and support? This is a question that has stayed with me since the end of a small workshop that I organised in late July, funded jointly by the Institute for Social Futures and the Centre for…Read more
Mattering Press launches
1134 words | 4.5 minute read
Friendship is not to be sought, not to be dreamed,not to be desired; it is to be exercised (it is a virtue).Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, 1952, p. 67 At some point during the proceedings that constituted the launch of Mattering Press at Conway Hall[1] I found myself looking at pictures of friends. Projected onto…Read more
The future of the book in STS
872 words | 3.5 minute read
On the 12th November, at the 4S conference in Denver, Colorado, Mattering Press held a mini-symposium on the ‘Future of the STS book,’ as part of the ‘Making and Doing’ sessions. This symposium was held as part of the conference’s first ever ‘Making and Doing’ session, and featured a few friends of Mattering Press – authors,…Read more
Why Books Matter: There is value in what cannot be evaluated
1968 words | 7.5 minute read
Academic publishing is intricately bound to evaluation. The demand to publish as much as possible has led to the chopping up of research into minimum publishable units across journals that are easily counted, ranked and evaluated. Books, however, are not so easily accounted for. Julien McHardy argues the value of books is in this freedom…Read more
Joe Deville presents at Radical Open Access
151 words | 1 minute read
In June this year, Joe Deville gave a talk at the Radical Open Access conference, at Coventry University. Organised by Janneke Adema and Gary Hall (that’s the Gary Hall from our advisory board), the event hosted two days of intense discussion amongst a range of individuals and collectives involved in attempts to develop visions for Open Access…Read more
Natalie Gill joins Mattering Press
66 words | 0.5 minute read
A new member of the editorial board. Mattering Press is pleased to announce that Natalie Gill has joined the team of Editors at the press. Natalie is interested in specificity, relationality, the mundane and the way subjectivities, objects and contexts are enacted in political practices. Her PhD thesis explored the daily routines and practices of…Read more
From Openness to Openings
2341 words | 9 minute read
Reflections on the Experiments in Knowledge Production workshop. Originally published June 18th, 2014. Science and Technology Studies (STS) has a long-standing interest in analysing the politics of knowledge production. One of its strengths has been the demonstration of the contingencies, blindspots and power-plays that are wrapped up in the creation, standardisation, and distribution of knowledge…Read more
Samizdat lessons for Mattering Press
2266 words | 8.5 minute read
Originally published 12th March, 2014. Many thanks, Nicholas, for the kind introduction – it’s great to be back as a guest blogger! Last time I was here, I wrote a series of posts about the material practices of democratic politics, and the ways in which they were being coordinated and distributed by the Hungarian Parliament…Read more
New forms of care for STS books
1136 words | 4.5 minute read
Originally published 4th December, 2013. Mattering Press is a new book publishing initiative committed to the creation and publishing of widely accessible, carefully produced, and intellectually vibrant books in Science and Technology Studies (STS). Our first books are due to be published in 2014. In September of this year we had the opportunity to introduce the…Read more