$50,000 Prizes Award Four Open Access Books in the Humanities and Fund Future Open Access Publications
NEW YORK, Sept. 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 ACLS Open Access Book Prizes and Arcadia Open Access Publishing Awards. Supported by Arcadia, these prizes recognize and reward the authors and publishers of exceptional, innovative, and open access humanities books published from 2018 to 2023.
Environmental Humanities
History
Literary Studies
Multimodal
Each prize winner was selected from a shortlist of five finalists by a distinguished panel of judges. The authors of the winning titles will receive a cash award of $20,000, and the winning publishers will receive a grant for $30,000 to support the immediate open access publication of at least two new books. The prizes, among the largest for scholarly books, will be presented at the New York Public Library on October 22, 2025.
“These authors and publishers exemplify the promise of open access: top-notch scholarship with global impact that circulates freely,” said ACLS President Joy Connolly. “Their books invite readers worldwide into vital conversations about a wide range of topics, from climate change to refugee resettlement and the intersection of art and labor. ACLS looks forward to continuing our work with Arcadia to nurture a publishing ecosystem in which humanistic knowledge flourishes for many years to come.”
For more than 100 years ACLS has supported the creation and circulation of knowledge that advances our understanding of humanity and human endeavors. Amplifying humanistic scholarship through initiatives such as the ACLS Open Access Books Prizes cultivates a twenty-first-century ecosystem in which humanistic publications can thrive.
Submissions for the 2026 ACLS Open Access Book Prizes and Arcadia Open Access Publishing Awards will open in late October. Sign up to stay updated on the prize and be notified when the competition opens.
Formed a century ago, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is a nonprofit federation of 81 scholarly organizations. As the leading representative of American scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, ACLS upholds the core principle that knowledge is a public good. In supporting its member organizations, ACLS expands the forms, content, and flow of scholarly knowledge, reflecting our commitment to diversity of identity and experience. ACLS collaborates with institutions, associations, and individuals to strengthen the evolving infrastructure for scholarship.
Arcadia is a family philanthropy. It was founded by Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin in 2002. Arcadia helps people to record cultural heritage, to conserve and restore nature, and to promote open access to knowledge. Since 2002 Arcadia has awarded $1.3 billion to organizations around the world.
SOURCE American Council of Learned Societies
