The first Kriterium title to feature an author from Uppsala University was published in September 2021. The book in question is a research publication entitled “Birgittinerna och deras bilder. En studie av bild, rum och betraktare i Vadstena klosterkyrka omkring år 1500” [The Birgittas and their depictions. A study of image, space and viewer at Vadstena Abbey Church around 1500] written by Eva Lindqvist Sandgren, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art History.
Kriterium is a quality label
Kriterium is a collaborative venture between several Swedish higher education institutions, publishers, libraries and research funding bodies. Its purpose is to peer-review Swedish scholarly books and then publish them with open access.
Kriterium is not itself a publisher but instead a quality label. In formal terms, Kriterium is actually a publication series where publication is always in partnership with another publisher. The titles that are part of the Kriterium series are therefore published simultaneously in one of the established ways: via a university publication series, by a publisher, or in another academic series. This is where the practical aspects of the publication process occur – in its capacity as a publishing channel, Kriterium provides and oversees the scholarly quality review of the works.
Kriterium is open to scholarly books from all higher education institutions and publishers.
Form that suits scholars in the humanities
“The Kriterium label means that a text has been peer-reviewed by two external reviewers. Unlike monographs that have not been subject to peer review, this means that it counts as a ‘more scholarly’ work. This is particularly important in light of all the rather feverish bibliometric analyses that are being done these days,” says Eva Lindqvist Sandgren. “This means that as a researcher you don’t just have to write articles to benefit from peer review – you can get this for an entire book. Sometimes a book may be a better fit than one or more shorter journal articles, which makes this ideal! For us humanities scholars, it is great to have a form that is NOT tailored to the output of natural scientists but instead suit us well.”
Eva Lindqvist Sandgren thinks the process of obtaining the Kriterium label worked well with no hiccups.
“It wasn’t difficult or complicated. All I had to do was e-mail them. The person who did the most work in the process was the Acta series editor. The editor handled all contact between Kriterium and the reviewers. I received their reports just as I would in any other review process.”
Would you recommend that others apply for the Kriterium label?
“Yes, definitely.”