Highlights

2020-21

Approximately

53,000 people

signed up to attend our flagship English Language Online Teaching Conference (ELTOC)—a sign of the importance of professional development among teaching communities during a time of so much change.

1,000 books

We launched numerous open access portals and materials throughout the year to help people during lockdown, including offering access to NHS staff to over 1,000 books in Oxford Medicine Online.

We celebrated winning a trio of prestigious prizes for history publishing, winning a Pulitzer Prize, the Wolfson History Prize, and the Cundill History Prize, while Oxford University Press composer Cecelia McDowall was awarded the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Works Collection.

50,000 copies sent to schools across South Africa

We published a free e-picture book called ‘Everybody Worries’ by Jon Burgerman, endorsed by clinical psychologists, to provide wellbeing support to children throughout the pandemic. We also translated into IsiXhosa, IsiZulu and Sesotho, and distributed 50,000 copies to schools across South Africa.

We achieved the milestone of more than 25,000 of our academic research books being made available online.

Education

We launched the Lockdown Learning Heroes Awards, to celebrate those who had gone above and beyond to support learning during unusual circumstances.

Unprecedented Year

There was a different approach to the annual announcement of the Oxford Word of the Year this year, producing a report on multiple influential words called Words of an Unprecedented Year, rather than a winning word and shortlist.

We supported the SHAPE (Social Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts for People and the Economy) initiative, which aims to highlight the significant role these disciplines play in our everyday lives. We are already working hard to help SHAPE thrive in the new age of digital publishing.

Being Well, Living Well

This was proudly launched this year by Epigeum, part of Oxford University Press and a leading provider of online courses that support colleges and universities. The online toolkit offers a digital course to students in the UK and Australia with a focus on supporting student wellbeing.