Both companies will supply single- and two-colour crown quarto and demy quarto section sewn books. The three-year contract for the Alden Group has an estimated value of 350,000, while CPI Bath will produce 400,000 of work.

The Open Universitys manager of materials procurement, Bob Heasman, said: These are short-run academic texts that we publish. Typically they are under 10,000 in run length.

The university, which spends around 10m a year on print, retenders its contracts regularly.

The contracts were advertised on the European Unions Tenders Electronic Daily website and given to the most economic bids.