University Press Limited, The

University Press Limited, The (UPL) a leading publishing company of Bangladesh established in 1974. It took over the publishing programme of Oxford University Press (OUP) in Bangladesh in 1975. Since then, UPL has been collaborating with OUP Oxford and its branches in Pakistan and India. UPL has its main office in Dhaka with office in Chittagong. The company publishes educational, academic and scholarly books in both Bangla and English.

UPL has won the National Book Centre Award 16 times since 1981. UPL is also the first Bangladeshi publisher to export books and its books are available in the libraries of Ivy League universities in the United States. UPL published around 15000 books till 2018. Books from the United Kingdom, India and Pakistan are distributed by UPL. Besides its joint publishing programme with OUP and its branches, UPL has collaborated and co-published with Zed Books, Intermediate Technology Publications in the UK; West View Press, Indiana University Press, Kumarian Press in the US; Sage, MacMillan, Manohar Books in India.

UPL's best known initiative is the Road to Bangladesh series, initiated in the early 1990s, which is an ongoing book series on Bangladesh Liberation War to portray different perspectives this great event of the history of the country. The quality of the books of this series have made them highly valued among scholars. In 2017, UPL initiated the Adopt-a-Library programme that aimed at improving the reading habit of the youth in Bangladesh. In cooperation with Lift up Asia and Asialoka Trust, the programme is designed to increase the accessibility of books to the readers around the country.

UPL's publisher and Managing Director Mohiuddin Ahmed had been editor of OUP, Pakistan Branch until 1972. He had been actively contributing to the book development activities of Bangladesh till his death in 2021. His daughter, Mahrukh Mohiuddin is now the Managing Director of UPL. [Khondoker Bazlul Hoque]

Bibliography UPL website: www.uplbooks.com; The Daily Star, "An unparalleled veteran in the world of publishing", 17 February 2020, Retrieved 22 August 2020.