UP Week Blog Tour 2026 | Day 4: In Conversation…
University Press Week 2026 (#UPWeek), which takes place between 9th – 13th of November, celebrates the collective vigour of our global scholarly publishing community. Mission-driven, creative, and collaborative practices enable university presses worldwide to PowerUP every day, using our energy to fuel publications, projects, and initiatives that amplify our authors’ voices to inform our current moment and shape our future. Make sure to check out blog posts from other university presses in the Association of University Presses’ UP Week blog tour and browse the PowerUP gallery and reading list here.
This week, Liverpool University Press is looking at what we do to PowerUP, including looking at parts of our work which sparked discussion, collaboration and engagement with the wider community. In this blog post, we’re taking a look at our recent collaboration with the Department of English at the University of Liverpool to create and deliver a new Publishing Masters degree programme.
Launched in September 2026, the Publishing MA combines the industry expertise of our team at Liverpool University Press with the academic excellence of the University of Liverpool, a Russell Group institution, currently ranked within the world top 100 for English (QS World University Rankings 2025). This new MA is the first in the Russell Group to be co-developed with an on-site academic publisher, and it builds on the existing relationship between the Department of English and LUP which, twelve years ago, created the longstanding Pavilion Poetry work experience placement. For over a decade, LUP has co-delivered this as part of the third-year placement module, SOTA300, in which students get a valuable chance to work alongside our LUP colleagues and publishing professionals to produce the award-winning titles within the Poetry Pavilion imprint each year. This successful relationship, in which 80% of students proceed to a job in publishing or related industries after graduation, provided a strong foundation for the MA and our new students going forward.
Fostering a new dialogue between our LUP colleagues and the department allowed this cross-pollination to take place, and produce a course informed by the expertise of both parties that is both academically rigorous and also rich in the practical skills students need to forge a career in the publishing sector.
The course is specifically designed with students’ employability in mind, and is committed to small group teaching and encouraging a more rewarding learning experience, with ideas shared and explored amongst our students with industry professionals and tutors. Students have access to extensive library facilities, special collections and Liverpool’s renowned museums, libraries and galleries, as well as enjoying the expertise provided by LUP as a practicing on-site publlisher.
So far, the programme is off to a strong start, with student numbers exceeding our expectations and collaborative partnerships being set up across a range of publishers in trade, education and scholarly publishing to facilitate the Work Placement module which takes place in semester two. We have also presented the programme at several Postgraduate open evenings, as well as on Publishing MA Panels for prospective students to engage as many students as possible from a range of disciplines and subject areas.
For prospective students and more information about the course, please visit the MA Publishing homepage.
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