2025-04-05-accounts - Mattering Press

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Annual report: April 06 2024 – April 05 2025

Mattering Press is a UK registered charity, whose charitable object is focused on advancing understandings of Science and Technology Studies via its open access books. As such, we report annually to the Charity Commission for England and Wales, in line with our financial year, which ends annually on April the 5th. We are strongly committed to being transparent about our activities as a Press and a charity. We therefore provide as much detail as we can in our reports. Past reports, as well as our accounts, and further details about Mattering Press can be accessed directly on the Charity Commission website.

Below is our report for the April 2024 to April 2025 financial year. These reports are also aimed at those seeking to understand more about the Press’ work, including institutions that provide the Press with annual financial support, via our Supporter Programme hosted by the Open Book Collective (OBC). As we explore in the report below, this funding is vital to the sustainability of the Press.

Aims and Purposes

Mattering Press is an Open Access publisher that is dedicated to increasing access to the social scientific study of expert-led knowledge in a field often referred to as Science and Technology Studies (STS). As an open access publisher we aim to increase access to research in the field of STS by making it widely and freely available in the form of monographs and edited collections.

Mattering Press established itself as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) on the 15[th] May 2013. The object of the charity as set out in our constitution is “To advance the education of the public in Science and Technology Studies, in particular by commissioning and publishing social scientific work on an open access basis”. All Mattering books are, therefore, freely available as ebooks and as printed books to purchase. We also support books using formats that are experimental or difficult to publish using conventional publishing models.

Publication activity and engagement

This was a year of public recognition and engagement for the Press. Although we did not publish any books within this 12 month period (although have since, as we will mention below), we made important steps towards further anchoring the Press’ reputation as a key venue for the publication of long form, peer reviewed scholarship, of the highest quality within and relating to the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS).

This came together most visibly at the EASST 4S 2024 conference, which took place at Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam in July 2024. This biannual conference is the highest profile European venue for bringing together a global STS community. It also marked a symbolic return to physical scholarly co-presence, as the worst effects of the Covid-19 pandemic were receding from view, for many at least.

As we describe in a post-event reflection we authored, the standout moment from the Press' perspective was witnessing Irina Papazu collect the 2024 Chris Freeman Award for Democratic Situations, which Irina edited jointly with Andreas Birkback. It felt like an incredibly important moment for the Press, to see our work being institutionally legitimated in such a public way. Many congratulations once again to Irina, Andreas and all the book’s authors.

Mattering was present at the conference in many other ways. We had a stand, kindly offered to us by the conference organisers. This presented the opportunity for the Press’ then seven editors (we have since expanded to eight) to engage with a range of colleagues, including readers, authors past and present. We were also pleased to me able to meet colleagues from Vrije Universiteit library itself, which is one of the institutions providing potentially renewable financial support to Mattering Press, by subscribing to our Supporter Programme the Open Book Collective. Thanks, as ever, to all our library supporters.

In addition to this, the Press' editors took part in a range of other activities related to open access publishing. Joe Deville continued his role as Principal Investigator of the Copim Open Book Futures project, funded by Research England and Arcadia, which is developing a range of solutions, workflows and scholarly interventions for supporting longform open access publishing. He also continued his role as Managing Director of Open Book Collective, whose impact on the Press' work is documented above. Julien McHardy also contributed to the Copim project, as part of the Experimental Publishing Group. This included his ongoing work as a key member of the Editorial Oversight Group of the Experimental Publishing Compendium, as well as contributing to the ongoing experimental open access publication, Deep Maps: Blue Humanities, as documented in two updates, on in October 2024, the other in March 2025, as well as a range of other Experimental Publishing Group collective outputs.

Forthcoming publications

The end of the 2024-2025 financial year was spent working on the then forthcoming publication of Technoscientific Globalisation from Below, edited by Mathieu Quet, Koichi Kameda, Jessica Pourraz and Yves-Marie Rault-Chodankar. This book was published in September 2025 and we will say more about this in the next annual report, which covers this financial year.

We are also working on eight forthcoming texts. These include Homo Textor: Weaving as a (Technical Mode of Existence), which we announced as a forthcoming title recently. More details of the other texts will be announced in due course, but they include a co-authored monograph on cleaning practices in Amsterdam, a three-part multi-author volume exploring predictions as a social scientific and artist practice, an experimental text exploring site specific propositions relating to archives from a UK cathedral, and an edited collection exploring what the authors call 'value economies' of diverse kinds.

Finances and accounts

This financial year, as shown in our full accounts, and summarised below, the Press generated £18,494 in revenue. This was primarily made up of direct income from institutions, covering production costs of books, and income from contributions from supporting libraries, via our OBC Supporter Programme. Our total revenue more or less precisely matched our costs, which totalled £18,186. 48% of these costs were associated with staffing, relating to the Press' first employee, our Publishing Project Manager, a major development we discussed in our last annual report. As we noted there, this role has been transformational for the long term sustainability of the Press, putting us on a far more stable financial and operational footing and helping us further move away from a dependence on volunteer labour. Book production costs were the second largest category, at 16%, followed by Marketing costs at 11%.

	2023-2024	2024-2025
OBC Supporter Programme	£4,447	£8,394
Income
Book Processing Fees	£854	£9,217
Book Sales	£5,511	£883
Donations	£104	£0
Total	£10,916	£18,494

Comparing Mattering Press revenue, 2023-24 vs 2024-25

Metrics and impact

As a small Press, we do not currently have the capacity to provide reliable quantitative measures of the impact of our books in terms of usage. This is something we are, however, continuing to work on with our partners in the Copim community.

We are able to provide some indicative citation statistics for our books (via Google Scholar, 3rd February 2026). For edited collections, this includes citations only for the book as a whole.

Mattering Press books were cited an additional 159 times in the past 12 months, achieving a total of 855 citations to date. This is broken down as follows (in brackets shows change vs. last year):

The Ethnographic Case (2nd Edition)

Edited by Emily Yates-Doerr and Christine Labuski Publication year: 2023 Citations: 6 (+2)

Democratic Situations

Edited by Andreas Birkbak and Irina Papazu Publication year: 2022 Citations: 24 (+4)

Concealing for Freedom

Ksenia Ermoshina and Francesca Musiani (Foreword by Laura DeNardis) Publication year: 2022 Citations: 34 (+12)

Engineering the Climate Julia Schubert Publication year: 2022 Citations: 20 (+10)

With Microbes

Edited by Charlotte Brives, Matthäus Rest and Salla Sariola Publication year: 2021 Citations: 61 (+23)

Environmental Alterities

Edited by Cristóbal Bonelli and Antonia Walford Publication year: 2022 Citations: 3 (+1)

Sensing In/Security

Edited by Nina Klimburg-Witjes, Nikolaus Poechhacker & Geoffrey C. Bowker Publication year: 2021 Citations: 23 (+4)

Energy Worlds in Experiment

Edited by James Maguire, Laura Watts & Brit Ross Winthereik

Publication year: 2021 Citations: 17 (-)

Boxes: A Field Guide Edited by Susanne Bauer, Martina Schlünder, Maria Rentetzi Publication year: 2020 Citations: 25 (+8)

An Anthropology of Common Ground Nathalia Brichet Publication year: 2018 Citations: 11 (-)

Ghost-Managed Medicine Sergio Sismondo Publication year: 2018 Citations: 188 (+40)

Inventing the Social

Edited by Noortje Marres, Michael Guggenheim, Alex Wilkie Publication year: 2018 Citations: 166 (+23)

Energy Babble

Andy Boucher, Bill Gaver, Tobie Kerridge, Mike Michael, Liliana Ovalle, Matthew Plummer-Fernandez, and Alex Wilkie

Publication year: 2018 Citations: 21 (+3)

Modes of Knowing

Edited by John Law, Evelyn Ruppert Publication year: 2016 Citations: 109 (+9)

Imagining Classrooms

Vicki Macknight Publication year: 2016 Citations: 11 (+2)

On Curiosity Frank Cochoy Publication year: 2016 Citations: 41 (+4)

Practising Comparison Publication year: 2016 Citations: 95 (+14)

Governance

Mattering Press is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) whose only voting members are its charity trustees. The charity trustees are also the General Editors for the Press. The Editors, or the Board of Trustees meet quarterly to administer the business of the Press. All decisions are brought to the board either via email or during meetings. Trustees each have a portfolio that they are responsible for administering.

In the event of a retiring trustee, the board will meet to discuss the skill requirements needed to fill the position. In selecting individuals for appointment as charity trustees and Editors, the board has regard for the skills, knowledge and experience needed to administer the CIO.

Nominations for the new Trustee may come from the Board or the wider STS community. The Editors will vote to accept new applications at a General Meeting. New trustees are then inducted into charity business at their first Trustees meeting. During this meeting they are briefed about their legal obligations under charity law, the Charity Commission guidance on public benefit, the Mattering Press Constitution, the committee and decision-making processes, the business plan and recent financial performance of the charity. The work of administering the charity is supported by the Press’ two Advisory Boards.

Reference and administrative details

Charity Number: 1152056

The Trustees that have served during the financial year here reported and until the date this report was approved are as follows:

Uli Beisel, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Endre Dányi, Bundeswehr University Munich, Germany
Joe Deville, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
Anna Dowrick, Oxford University, UK
Julien McHardy, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Michaela Spencer, Charles Darwin University, Australia
Natalie Gill, University of West England, Bristol, UK

There have been no changes in Trustees over the period.

This report was approved on 4 February 2026 by Uli Beisel, Endre Dányi, Joe Deville, Anna Dowrick, Natalie Gill, Julien McHardy, and Michaela Spencer.

CC16a

Charity number: Mattering Press 1152056 Receipts and payments accounts For the period 06 April 2024 To 05 April 2025 from

Section A Receipts and payments

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A1 Receipts Receipts from institutions(publishingfees) 8,394 - - 8,394 854 Receipts from institutions(supporterprogrammes) 9,217 9,217 4,447 Individual donations - - - - 104 Sales 833 - - 833 5,511 *Sub total*(Gross income for AR) 18,443 - - 18,443 10,915 Unrestricted funds Restricted funds Endowment funds Last year Total funds ~~SS~~
	A2 Asset and investment sales
- - - - - - - - - *Sub total* - - - - - *Total receipts* 18,443 - - 18,443 10,915 ~~A SSS~~
	A3 Payments
	Administration	731					731	1,032
	Bank Charges	32					32	20
	Equipment	70					70	-
	IT Costs	33					33	-
	Legal & Accounting	1,567					1,567	-
	Marketing	2,018					2,018	416
	OBC Fees	543					543	364
	OBC Donations	461					461	262
	Printing& Distribution	702					702	939
	Production	2,931					2,931	1,874
	Staff	8,783					8,783	-
	Travel & Subsistence	235					235	1,337
	Exchange Differences	78					78	-
	*Sub total*	18,186	-	-	-		18,186	6,243
	A4 Asset and investmentpurchases
- - - - *Sub total* - - - - - *Total payments* 18,186 - - 18,186 6,243 ~~SS~~
	*Net of receipts/(payments)* A5 Transfers between funds A6 Cash funds last year end *Cash funds this year end*	258 - - 258 4,672 - - - - - 39,389 - - 39,389 34,717 39,647 - - 39,647 39,389 ~~==>>>~~
	Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period	Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
					Unrestricted		Restricted	Endowment
	B1 Cash funds				funds		funds	funds
		30,970 - - WiseAccounts 1,666 Paypal Accounts 7,011 - - 39,647 - - Co-Op CurrentAccount *Total cash funds* ~~—————~~
					Unrestricted		Restricted	Endowment
	B2 Other monetary assets				funds		funds	funds
					-		-	-
	B3 Investment assets				Fund to which asset belongs		Cost (optional)	Current value (optional)
							-	-
	B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use				Fund to which asset belongs		Cost (optional)	Current value (optional)
							-	-
					Fund to which		Amount due	When due
	B5 Liabilities				liability relates		(optional)	(optional)
							-
		Signature			Print Name	Print Name		Date of approval
	Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees	26 Sep 2025 Joseph Deville ~~ep~~