Nepali universities do not own and run academic presses, which are units that commission and publish academic works in the form of books and journals. Today, I am only concerned about books published by such entities.

Nepal’s oldest university, Tribhuvan University (TU), does own a printing press. Started most likely in the early 1970s, it was then called University Press and has now become Tribhuvan University Press. While this entity might be necessary to print TU stationery such as the question papers for the many exams it conducts each year, I am not referring to such a physical press.

Instead, I am talking about a proper publishing unit that solicits and commissions academic books and manages their peer-review process. Regarding manuscripts accepted for publication, the unit will also handle the copy-editing, layout and proofreading to see the book through to final production. In other words, I am looking for publishing units with imprints that might have names like Tribhuvan University Press, Kathmandu University Press and Pokhara University Press.

University presses elsewhere

The university presses that mostly publish academic works (although increasingly also some general interest books) have existed in Europe and North America for a while. Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press were established in the 16th century and are associated with the two eponymous British Universities. Some of the oldest university presses in the US such as the Johns Hopkins University Press and the University of Chicago Press are more than 120 years old. There are similar university presses in continental Europe, like Amsterdam University Press, and in Australia, like Melbourne University Publishing.

Closer to our country, there are university presses in Japan (Kyoto University Press), Singapore (National University of Singapore Press) and Thailand (Chulalongkorn University Press). India does not have a strong tradition of such presses. The new Ashoka University has entered into a co-publishing arrangement with the publisher Permanent Black to put out books under the “Hedgehog & Fox” series.

Most of the university presses do not make a profit. They serve the public via the production of academic texts. Their business operations are subsidised for the most part by their mother universities or subventions from third parties. In the US, these third parties have included the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Their daily operations are managed by professionals with diverse experience in publishing. Each unit is usually supervised by a committee of academics from inside and outside the associated university. The Association of University Presses has more than 160 members from different countries.

The American university press system was professionalised two decades after World War II. Since then, as former director of the University of Michigan Press Phil Pochoda explained in a 2012 article, the American university presses have provided a very important service for the larger academic community. As “superior teaching, institutional service, and professional reputation were no longer sufficient for moving into and up the faculty ranks,” the quality “of publication became … the primary qualification for faculty appointment” and promotion. Pochoda continued: “If administrations were to require published books as a major part of a decision on faculty tenure or promotion, then it was necessary for the books to arrive at that decision point already professionally authorised… (by) credentialed external reviewers.”

Since there are only about 100 plus university presses in America and about 4,000 higher education institutions, Pochada suggested that these university “presses … are in fact subsidising… other universities and colleges.” Even as many features of the print-based American university press system of the previous century have been undone by the ongoing digital transitions in scholarly publishing, it still retains a solid role in the higher education landscape of the US.

Possible here

Nepal had a late start in academic publishing. When the print-based university press system was being fully finalised in America during the 1960s, Nepal’s oldest university, TU, had just started publishing scholarly resources such as the Journal of the Tribhuvan University (established 1964). Its departments and research centres started putting out their own publications in the 1970s. Even as publications by faculty members became important for their recruitment and promotion in the later decades, no decisions seem to have taken place regarding the starting of a publishing imprint inside TU.

Triratna Manandhar, a former professor of history who taught at TU for about 40 years (from 1967 onwards) and served as humanities and social science dean for eight years, does not recall any conversation on this subject. Historian Bhaveswar Pangeni, who has written a book on the institutional history of TU and has done extensive research on the archives of the minutes of TU’s executive council, does not recall seeing a record of any related discussion. In its initial years, one can make the excuse that TU’s collective research community was a small one and hence something like TU Press was not viable. Given the significant increase in the number of researchers who work for TU and elsewhere, this excuse does not hold for the post-1990 period.

The situation is not much different in our newer universities. Kathmandu University is now 30 plus years old and employs dozens of fine researchers in many different disciplines. In a functional university that exercises a good degree of autonomy and holds international aspirations, it is surprising that something like a Kathmandu University Press does not exist already. However, the former dean of its School of Arts, Sagar Raj Sharma, has told me that conversations around such an idea have been ongoing for a while.

Everything done by Western universities need not be copied by Nepali universities. However, since universities are perceived to be the most legitimate source of knowledge production and distribution, starting university presses in our country would be a good idea. The truth is that a few academics in each of our universities who care about good scholarship could put together publishing programmes if they got their act together. Such an initiative will of course require the blessings of our university leaders, investments on interested people and some infusion of money.

Faculty members could be provided incentives to take up publishing-related positions for three or more years. The needed money can be earmarked in funds made available to universities by the University Grants Commission or third parties. Academics working in research institutions inside and outside of Nepal with substantial publishing experiences could be recruited to serve as members of the supervisory boards.

Some folks think that the era of printed books is already over. I don’t think that is the case. Print runs of recent academic books published in Nepal are larger than those in neighbouring India for a reason. The books still sell in Nepal. Hence, Nepali university presses should put out some great academic books—monographs reporting new research or those that synthesise the most recent knowledge on any given subject, edited volumes of new writings, or readers of old writings—desired by academics, students and members of the public. The collaborative work needed to run university presses might even ameliorate the deleterious effects of bhagbanda spoils in our universities.