University of Manchester becomes the new home of CrimRxiv - The global open access hub for Criminology

The University of Manchester is the new home of CrimRxiv, a repository and hub for open access (free) criminology and criminal justice publications. This strengthens UoM’s reputation as a global leader in criminology and in open research. Since its launch in July 2020, CrimRxiv has freely shared over 2,000 publications, with nearly 230,000 views by more than 112,000 readers from 209 countries.

Scott Jacques, Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Georgia State University, founded CrimRxiv to promote open access to criminological scholarship worldwide. It remains the only open access repository devoted to criminology and criminal justice, and ensures that anyone can read the publications it makes available, entirely for free.

The University of Manchester will use CrimRxiv to make criminology a more diverse, equitable and inclusive research environment, increasing research transparency and responsibility, in order to improve evidence-based decision-making across government, nonprofit and industry sectors. This aligns with The University of Manchester’s increasing support to create an open and responsible research environment and to embrace the principles of open access and open science. The University’s growing support for open research is also reflected in its recent update of the organisational publications policy to embrace rights retention, which in turn means authors’ articles can be made immediately available for all to access.

The results of research should be freely available to everyone, everywhere. I aim for CrimRxiv to become the most important digital place in criminology. It is a huge honour, opportunity, and responsibility for The University of Manchester to be its new home, and me its new Director.

Judith Aldridge, Head of Criminology at The University of Manchester and new Director of CrimRxiv

The new Director of CrimRxiv is Judith Aldridge, Professor of Criminology and Head of Criminology at UoM, while the founder and former director of CrimRxiv, Scott Jacques, is now Associate Director for Sustainability. David Buil-Gil, Open Criminology Lead at UoM, is Managing Moderator. Additionally, UoM’s Governance and Management team for CrimRxiv includes Eon Kim as Lead EDI Officer; Scott Taylor, Head of Research Services and the Office for Open Research; Bill Ayres, Strategic Lead for Research Data Management; Lukas Hughes-Noehrer, Co-Chair and Local Network Lead for Open and Reproducible Research; and Reka Solymosi, Senior Lecturer in Research Methods. A team of PhD students will serve as Moderators to process submissions quickly and reliably. They are Diana Bociga, Thomas Cunningham, Allysa Czerwinsky, Maria Fernanda Ibarra Gutierrez, Nathan Khadaroo-McCheyne, Ana Maria Nicoriciu and Benjamin Palfreeman-Watt. CrimRxiv is supported by the University Office for Open Research, and powered by PubPub, an infrastructure designed by Knowledge Futures.