Why COVID-19 led Bristol University Press to introduce a Rapid Responses format

This is the thirteenth and final post in a six-week series: Rapid or Rushed? exploring rapid response publishing in covid times. Read the rest of the series here. As part of the series, there was a virtual roundtable featuring Professor Joshua Gans (Economics in the Age of COVID-19, MIT Press), in conversation with Richard Horton (The COVID-19 Catastrophe, Polity Press and Editor of The Lancet), Victoria Pittman (Bristol University Press) and Qudsiya Ahmed (Cambridge University Press, India) The pandemic is having a significant impact on academic publishing, including accelerating a move to digital and raising the need for swift, often shorter, academic commentaries. In response to this, Bristol University Press, a social science publisher with an existing focus on publications which aim to influence thinking, research and practice, introduced a new Rapid Responses format. In this post, roundtable panellist and head of commissioning at Bristol University Press, Victoria Pittman outlines what this format is and how it fits with Bristol’s wider agenda.