NUS Press

In 1954, the University of Malaya (founded in 1949) established a Publishing Committee to oversee manage academic publishing in Malaya. The Publishing Committee operated with the assistance of the Oxford University Press, which carried out editing and other back-end work for academic articles the Committee sent to the press for publishing. The committee comprised the university's vice chancellor as its chairman, a librarian, representatives from the University Council and Senate, the Education Ministry, and a representative from the OUP.

In 1959, the University of Malaya split into two autonomous units, with one division in Kuala Lumpur and the other in Singapore. These divisions eventually split in 1962 to become the University of Malaya and the University of Singapore. Despite the split, the two national universities continued to share a publishing arm. By this time, the Publishing Committee had become a limited company called the University of Malay Press (UM Press). The UM Press continued its collaboration with the OUP until 1969. It was not until 1971 that the University of Singapore established its own publishing arm in the Singapore University Press.