Summing up, 2025 has been an interesting year. Ups and downs (too many downs) in world politics and in publishing. We have published many books and journals in print and digital formats in German and in English. We went to many conferences and events – all the way to South Korea in one instance. We discussed social sciences, publishing, education and democracy with very many different people – academics, authors, politicians, colleagues, journalists, to list but a few. We worked towards more accessibility of our list of publications and kept an eye on our carbon footprint. Overall, “interesting” captures it.
If you want more details, just read on.
1. Mission, vision, and values
There is a change in society and in politics. Democracy, diversity, equality and education may never have been on autopilot for any society, however, in recent years, racism, antisemitism, misogyny, transphobia and the like have grown. Antidemocratic political parties, in the Western world mostly of the far right, are threatening to undermine democratic processes and efforts towards fairer and more equal societies. Alongside those developments, academic freedom is under threat as well.
Since we believe that the academic disciplines we mainly focus on have a great deal to offer for democratic societies, for knowledge and education, for the benefit of society, we are standing even stronger in our mission to make these disciplines, their academics, their knowledge and publications visible.
We started the year by underlining democratic values in our blogposts and campaigning for democracy at large. We believe that the freedom democracy brings is still the central value to strive for in all that we do. In times like these, social sciences are more important than ever.
2. Changes
There will be more to say with respect to our academic advisory board in the events and strategic sections. It is a board of trusted advisors, who are invested in the publishing house’s development. We are very grateful for their support – and many of the members have been personal friends for many years if not decades. This makes it so much harder to say goodbye. Prof. Dr. Sigrid Metz-Göckel was one of our earliest authors. She published many books with us and she served on the editorial board of our journal GENDER for many years – she was even one of the key founding members of this very journal. She dedicated countless hours to our shared goals. And she died in February 2025. She is and will be dearly missed!
3. Operational highlights
Stats, dissemination & partners
In 2025, we published 185 books and 61 issues of our 29 journals. 79 of our books were published gold open access which amounts to 59% of this year’s new releases. That is a nice increase compared to 2024 with 43% of gold OA publications.
We stuck to our fields of Civic Education, Educational Research, Gender Studies, International Relations, Pedagogy, Political Science, Public Policy, Social Work, and Sociology.
We experimented with new digital formats publishing a number of so-called web books with additional digital materials and some interactivity. Due to the high production cost, those publications are behind a paywall, but naturally, we are very happy to dedicate funding towards these powerful teaching and learning tools.
With our global network of distributors, we are happy to report the global reach of our publication efforts! Global players like JSTOR, EBSCO, ProQuest, and our German partners like utb-e-library, Dietmar Dreier, Missing Link, and others have all helped to distribute our digital publications around the globe. In order to keep our publications accessible and visible long-term, we cooperate with Portico.
Physical publications travel just as well, particularly carried by Columbia University Press in the US, Global Books in the UK, and others all over the world. You can find our international partners online.
In addition to commercial distributors also carrying OA publications, we cooperate with a number of repositories. Among them OAPEN, but also German repositories organised along the lines of academic disciplines, like SSOAR (Social Science Open Access Repository), peDOCs (by the German Institute of International Educational Research, DIPF), and GenderOpen, to name a few.
We take metadata management very seriously, and thus, make sure that all our titles are listed in all pertinent and relevant databases, and we encourage our authors to register with ORCID to enhance their visibility as well.
In OA terms, our publications are listed in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) or the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Again, ensuring enhanced visibility for our Open Access publications.
Editorial and peer-review activity
As we have seen in recent years, there is no continuity in the number of manuscripts that are being submitted. In our statistics, we keep submissions separate from suggestions by trusted authorities, like members of the advisory board or series editors. In total, 2025 had us look at 365 submissions (compared to 280 of 2024), 103 of which experienced a desk reject or were rejected after review (29%). While a number of potential publications are still work in progress – be it under author consideration or in a peer review process –, we signed agreements for a total of 195 new projects.
Our review processes are diverse; we always implement a close editorial scrutiny, often coupled with a single-blind expert review process. When series editors suggest manuscripts as new additions to their own book series, we still keep high editorial standards; the peer review process in these cases is managed by the series editors.
The time it takes from acceptance to publication varies significantly, since we co-develop some publications from a first draft, while other projects are completed when they are submitted. On average, it takes roughly 6 to 12 months from acceptance to publication.
In June 2025, the European Accessibility Act came into force. We had been preparing for this for quite some time and have been working with German government institutes and their high standards with regards to accessibility. Thus, experience met compliance and we are providing accessible publications whenever economically viable. This is tricky in parts, but we are doing our best to provide accessible publications to visually impaired readers. If ever a challenge arises with regards to accessibility, we will try and amend as quickly as possible. The same goes without saying for ADA Title II, i.e., the US version of accessibility, which is similar to the EAA but not the same in all its moving parts.
Partnerships and community engagement
2025 has been marked by collaboration – as always – and new cooperations, which proved to be very exciting and mutually beneficial.
The first BIG thing in Open Access for us was the official start as a member of the Open Book Collective (OBC) which we announced in March 2025 on our blog.
Towards the end of 2025, we had a number of different efforts of Open Access transformations on the agenda: collaborations with German “Fachinformationsdienste” (academic information services for different disciplines) for Sociology (Sociohub) and Pedagogy (FID Erziehungswissenschaft). Sociohub helped secure funding for one of our Open Access journals (GENDER), and FID Erziehungswissenschaft organised funding for our journal “Debatte” to be transformed to Open Access as of vol. 2026, and three books, two released in 2025 and one to be published in 2026. More details on OA funding under “Financials”.
Furthermore, the library consortium “Forum 13+” supported our efforts to fund a book package of 8 Open Access titles. 27 university libraries mainly from Germany, but also from Austria and Switzerland united to make this package of high-quality publications from Educational Research/Pedagogy freely available for the pertinent audience.
As a member of the ENABLE! Community, we are looking forward to a new collaboration that is to start in 2026: Purchase to Open (P2O) is all set to start organizing OA library funding for individual titles. Set up by German key library suppliers, publishers are invited to suggest books for pledging. If the ultimate fee is granted by a pre-set date, the individual book is published OA. If not, participating libraries receive these titles for their collections, and any other library is invited to buy or license as usual.
On top of our involvement in the OA community and diverse scientific communities, we are also active in the realm of our industry and beyond. Thus, Barbara Budrich is a delegate in the Ausschuss für Verlage, the publishers’ committee of the Börsenverein (the German Publishers and Booksellers Association). Furthermore, she serves as a board member of the Federation of European Publishers (FEP). She is a member of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft wissenschaftlicher Verlage (Working Group of Academic Publishers), and also serves as a female role model entrepreneur (Vorbildunternehmerin) for the German Federal Ministry of Ecnomic Affairs and Energy.
Reporting: DEI and ESG
Our first DEI report was published early in 2025. It took us until December to take our first anti-racism training with one of Germany’s leading anti-racism trainers Tupoka Ogette. It was an important step to look at structural discrimination and our own shortcomings, and there will be more along these lines in the coming years.
Our ESG report on sustainability in the areas of environment, social and governance could not be finished before the end of 2025 and was thus published in the first week of January 2026. Nevertheless, it is part of our 2025 efforts. The next ESG report (for the year 2025) will be published much earlier in the year 2026.
“promotion” award, free coaching sessions and a grant
Each year, we award the “promotion” prize to a PhD thesis. This year’s prize went to Sebastian Klimasch for his work “Verschwörungssemantik zwischen Krise und Routine. Zur Wissenssoziologie der Debatten um die Corona-Pandemie“ (Conspiracy semantics between crisis and routine: On the sociology of knowledge of the debates surrounding the corona pandemic). Sebastian Klimasch won the publication of his thesis with Verlag Barbara Budrich in the promotion book series.
Part of our community support is our “Karriere-Kick” (career kick) offer to Budrich authors: Our offer to publish their book includes a free coaching session with our publisher Barbara Budrich. Quite a number of junior and senior authors took us up on the offer – and we are hoping to continue this special service!
Early in 2025, we started our first international student grant. In cooperation with a group of people later to set up “Help for Kyegegwa e.V.” and TAPA in Uganda, we are proud to sponsor tuition, housing and food for Cissy Atuhaire. She started her bachelor of schoolwork and social administration at the Mountains of the Moon University and is planning eventually to return to Kyegegwa to serve her community.
Marketing & Events
Most of our social media communication is channelled through Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and LinkedIn. If you like to follow us, our main international channels are Facebook and LinkedIn. We manage our blog posts in German and English separately, since the audience differs to some extent.
Our English (2,896 subscribers) and German (13,463 subscribers) newsletters often ignite discussions, since we do not only report on our new releases or comment on our own blog posts, but oftentimes address current affairs that affect academic publishing, freedom of science, and our authors and academics in general.
In May, we started with the first episode of our monthly Budrich Podcast. While mostly in German, some episodes are in English. The reach is growing, we will report on statistics in our 2026 report. The podcast is available on our website, but also on Spotify and all other pertinent platforms.
Our regular marketing efforts include social media campaigns, podcast interviews (not merely our own), contacting pertinent journalists and editors, organising book reviews on blogs and academic websites and in pertinent journals. We produce publicity leaflets for each individual book for our authors, for each individual journal for the editors, and along the lines of disciplines to exhibit at booths or include in mailings. Furthermore, we include adverts for books and journals in the 29 journals we publish ourselves, and for example in conference programs or on congress websites.
Speaking of which: 2025 has seen our booths at a great variety of different important events. Among them annual events like the Berliner Methoden-Treffen (BMT), an important conference on qualitative methods with some 400 attendees in Berlin, Germany, or the Summer School of the German Association for Educational Research (DGfE), where our editor Franziska Deller held a workshop on getting published in academia. Franziska Deller also presented our publications at the ECPR (European Consortium of Political Research) at Thessaloniki, Greece. Our head of the editorial team, Miriam von Maydell represented Budrich at the ECER (European Conference on Educational Research) in Belgrade, Serbia. Every other year, Budrich is among the exhibitors at the World Congress of the International Political Science Association, which this year took place in Seoul, South Korea.
Franziska Deller organised her own event at the German Open Access Days (OAT) in Konstanz, Germany, in September. At her fishbowl, publishers and librarians discussed Open Access models for independent journal publishers. And she was a panellist in another event during the OAT – as an Open Access expert she is obviously in high demand!
The German Sociological Association (DGS) held their national conference at Duisburg, Germany, and was visited by our editor Philip Bergstermann and Cathrin Mund (who is in marketing but also happens to be a supporting journal editor for our student-run Open Access journal “Soziologiemagazin”).
Cathrin Mund also went to a junior publishers’ training camp (Nachwuchscamp) organised by the Northrhine-Westfalian branch of the Börsenverein (German Publishers and Booksellers Association) to support young people from our industry and show them the ropes.
The annual highlight of international publishing, Frankfurt Book Fair, saw Budrich with our own stand, and our publisher, Barbara Budrich, participating in two panels. One on Women in Publishing organised by UN Women jointly with the International Publishers Association (IPA), the other for OAPEN’s 15th anniversary – another wonderful meeting point for the Open Access community!
On top of these academic events where we present our publications, Budrich publishers offer joint webinars on academic writing and publishing with budrich training, our academic training company. Our free webinars regularly see between 30 and 50 participants – depending on the specific topics. And budrich training has its own events – workshops, keynotes, coachings – roughly 20 events per year, with national and international reach from the Universität der Künste (University of the Arts) in Berlin via Fraunhofer Institute to Austrian and Swiss institutions and individual academics from Germany to Japan.
Our academic advisory board consisting about 50/50 of senior and emerging academics from our fields, came together in November for our “Beiratstag” held online in German. We had invited the renowned bestseller author, health expert and psychologist, Dr. Ulrike Scheuermann, who talked about AI and the influence of AI on our own intellectual capacities. It was an inspiring exchange spurring discussions among our advisory board members on how best to use AI in the process of teaching, writing and publishing.
Team
Throughout the year, we were supported by four work experience interns: Lea Bütof, Svenja Donner, Antonius Stockinger and Alex Schönberger. As always, these internships were mutually beneficial: it is always helpful for us as a team to have fresh eyes on what we do and discuss these students’ ideas! We are very grateful for their support!
In April, Jannik Esser joined our team as an IT specialist. While doing his master’s in computer science at Dusseldorf University, he is helping us speed up on all things digital!
By the end of September, we had to say goodbye to Beatrice Büchel, who had worked part-time as a student in our journals department. In ending her studies, we are sure she has by now found a great job in publishing as she had dreamed of!
By the end of November, Katarina Willems left the editorial team to take off on her self-employed track. There is never a perfect time to start this kind of career, but we are sure that there is a perfect person to go for it. Thus, we are sure she is going to be successful.
November and December 2025, we had to make do without Corinna Hipp, who has been with our marketing team for 20 years. Her sabbatical will last until February 1, 2026 – and we are all very curious to hear about her world travels and experiences. We are coping with her absence and looking forward to having her safely back again!
Financials
Still, sales of our publications make up round about 50% of our overall revenue; services we provide account for the other half of our revenue. Sales come in different shapes and forms and span from sales of single copies of printed books to individuals to licensing of publication packages with libraries. About 10% of our revenue is generated by subscriptions from the journals that still remain behind the paywall. We also had some sales of special editions to the German Agencies for Civic Education – Zentralen für politische Bildung – quite unique institutions that in part were introduced to Germany after WW II by the Western Allies, the U.S. among them, to teach democracy to Germans.
Two main blocks of cost had to be covered from these income streams: production cost and salaries. Apart from those two highest expenditures, there are all the marketing and travel costs related to the activities outlined above, and of course, a number of provisions, fees, software licenses etc. to pay, office rent and utilities, insurance premiums, and fees to our company’s own pension scheme which we introduced voluntarily in 2023 as an additional option for our team members.
As mentioned earlier, the FID Erziehungswissenschaft funded OA books in a 2025 pledging initiative and there were still two titles from the 2024 FID Erziehungswissenschaft pledging to be published 2025.
At 5,000 Euros each, we were able to publish the following titles from the 2024 pledging round in 2025:
- Anna-Franziska Kähler, Berufliche Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung in der Kommunalverwaltung (Vocational Education for Sustainable Development in Municipal Administration),
- Sandra Last, Interaktive Aufgabenbearbeitung im sprachlichen Anfangsunterricht (Interactive Task Work in Early Language Instruction).
The 2025 pledging round made 5,000 Euro per title available for the OA publication of the following books:
- Pia Rojahn, Hannah Arendts Pädagogik (Hannah Arendt‘s Pedagogy),
- Juno Grenz, Bildung in Zeiten von Antifeminismus (Education in Times of Antifeminism),
- Tobias Bauer et al. (eds.), Ausstiege und (Dis-)Kontinuitäten im Lehrer:innenberuf (Exits and (Dis)Continuities in the Teaching Profession) (to be released early in 2026).
Via the OBC, we received a total of 3,432.77 € in 2025. We are using the money to make two OA titles compliant with regards to accessibility along the lines of the EAA and ADA Title II, and towards the OA publication of another title in 2026:
- Julia Tietjen, Intersektionale Perspektiven auf Mutterschaft und Gleichberechtigung (Intersectional Perspectives on Motherhood and Equality) (accessibility cost: 216.48 €),
- Cathleen Grunert et al., Peers als Arenen politischer Sozialisation (Peers as Arenas of Political Socialization) (accessibility cost: 12 €).
The rest of 2,943.17 € will be paid towards the OA publication of Ulbert/Kaplan (eds.), Global Trends: Prospects for Development and Peace to be published in early 2026.
We are very happy, indeed, to have our OA efforts supported widely by universities from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, from the U.S. and beyond.
Strategic priorities & future plans
In December, we published our “Spring 2026” catalogue, detailing our publication plans for the first six months of 2026. Among them the German translation of Manuel Castells’ “Advanced Introduction to Digital Society” whose rights we acquired early in 2025. This is particularly exciting to Barbara Budrich, who some 25 years ago was involved in the German translation of Manuel’s “Information Age Trilogy” which was published by her father’s publishing company Leske + Budrich in the early 2000s.
Strategically, we are looking at a number of improvements:
- We are working on automating our workflows in general; particularly on formatting workflows, our ebook production and the editorial workflow for our journal editors.
- We are exploring new partnerships with international platforms and publishers to enhance our distribution networks.
We are working on the internationalization of our academic advisory board and are proud to announce that Prof. Dr. Manuel Castells is one of the first renowned scholars to join. We are looking forward to receiving further support from our global scholarly community.
