Charlesworth partners with Karger Publishers to provide representation services in China

November 1, 2023

Charlesworth is proud to announce a strategic partnership with Karger Publishers, a global publisher specialising in medical research. As part of this collaboration, Charlesworth will be working with Karger’s dedicated team in China to provide sales representation within the country.

Renowned for its track record in facilitating Transformative Agreements and its broad network of academic institutions and Chinese pharmaceutical companies, Charlesworth is well-positioned to represent Karger’s esteemed print and online journals, comprehensive eBook collections, and Transformative Agreements within China.

“Making knowledge more easily accessible is a cornerstone of Karger’s mission to connect people and science,” states Christian Box, at Karger. “We are delighted to be working with Charlesworth to provide the medical community in China with the best research available.”

Speaking of this new partnership, Michael Evans, CEO of Charlesworth says, “We are excited to partner with Karger Publishers, a true pioneer in the field of medical research representing more than 100 journals covering 25 medical disciplines. Their high-quality research serves the needs of the scientific community, clinicians and patients, helping to achieve true global impact. It is a privilege to be able to offer our expertise in facilitating transformative deals to complement Karger’s mission to connect the global medical community with cutting-edge research.”

As China’s influence in the global scientific community continues to grow, this partnership will help Karger expand its China footprint. By leveraging Charlesworth’s extensive experience and local expertise, Karger will be better positioned to navigate the complexities of the Chinese market and meet the growing demand for research content.

Karger and Jisc Sign Transitional Agreement with Industry-First ‘Read, Publish, and Outreach’ Offer to Authors

November 1, 2023

The Partnership between UK-based Digital Agency Jisc and Switzerland-based Karger Publishers Will Enable Authors from Participating Institutions to Publish their Articles Open Access (OA) at No Cost to Them with an Option to Showcase Their Research in Engaging, Written, Audio, and Visual Formats.

Karger Publishers and Jisc have reached a three-year agreement by once again expanding Open Access (OA) research publishing and, for the first time, providing authors and institutions with the opportunity to bring their knowledge to a broader, non-scientific public.

In effect from 2024 to 2026, the Transitional Agreement enables authors from participating Jisc member institutions to publish their articles OA at no cost to them, as well as providing unlimited access to Karger journals. In an industry-first, Karger has now added an option for authors to complement their publications and make their research even more widely visible via engaging written, audio, and visual formats that can be easily understood by non-specialists, too.

“This partnership with Jisc demonstrates our continued commitment to connecting people and science also beyond Open Access,” states Daniel Ebneter, CEO, Karger Publishers. “It’s increasingly important to our stakeholders to make their research findings understandable to a broader audience. We are happy to help them increase the visibility of their work.”

The innovative agreement includes optional services for science communications and dissemination, made possible through Karger’s academic outreach team. As a part of Karger’s ongoing mission to make research accessible and understandable to everyone, simplified plain language and compelling formats ensure that non-scientists – including government officials and policy makers, industry partners and the general public – gain an accurate understanding of the findings. Increasing public understanding of science is critical to increasing trust in science.

Anna Vernon, Head of Research, Jisc Licensing said: “We want to build on our collective progress and further break down barriers to access and participation in research. Showcasing research in a variety of formats allows more people to understand and to engage in research findings and studies.”

Through this new Transitional Agreement – a type of agreement also referred to as a Transformative Agreement – authors are able to opt for sharable formats such as short animations (in 2D and 3D visual formats), podcasts and magazine style articles with consistent institutional branding. Karger Publishers will also disseminate these formats to global audiences via social media promotions and provide an impact report that details the breadth of its global distribution.

Clarivate Partners with EveryLibrary to Support and Nurture Libraries in the U.S.

November 1, 2023

Clarivate Plc, a global leader in connecting people and organizations to intelligence they can trust to transform their world, today announced a partnership with EveryLibrary, the non-partisan advocacy organization for libraries.

As part of the partnership, Clarivate™ has made a commitment to advance EveryLibrary’s mission to safeguard and support libraries in the U.S.
Bar Veinstein, President, Academia & Government, Clarivate said: “Libraries transform the world through their critical role in promoting literacy, education, equal access to information and community engagement. Our partnership with EveryLibrary allows us to deliver on our commitment to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 (Quality Education) by supporting the librarian community.”

John Chrastka, Executive Director at EveryLibrary, said: “We are deeply appreciative of the support provided by Clarivate. This commitment will significantly enhance our ability to advocate for libraries. It will also help us assist libraries secure the funding necessary to ensure they can continue to serve their communities effectively.”

As part of the launch of the partnership, Chrastka joined “Ideas to Innovation Season 3,” a podcast from Clarivate, for the episode, “Turning the page: What does the future hold for academic libraries?” The discussion focused on the role that academic libraries play in fostering community and collaboration and the significant challenges they face in doing so.

Springer Nature expands its AI capability with acquisition of Slimmer AI’s Science division

November 1, 2023

With technology having played an important role in improving the way trusted science is published for decades, global academic publisher Springer Nature has signed a definitive agreement which will see the Netherlands’ Slimmer AI’s Science division (S-AI) join the company.

Springer Nature and Slimmer AI have been working together since 2015. Using Slimmer AI’s advanced software that leverages emerging technology, the partnership has created AI tools to speed up and improve the publishing process by:

Identifying appropriate editors to guide a manuscript through the submission process,
Increasing reviewer acceptance rates by recommending the best people to peer review a manuscript, and
Safeguarding the integrity of the scientific record by automating the identification of potential problems with papers, such as plagiarism.

Matthias Wissel, Chief Information Officer at Springer Nature, said:

“With a third of our colleagues already working in technology roles, technology is central to our ability to serve our communities and has played a vital role in the success of Springer Nature. It has helped us make our content more accessible, more open and visible, easier to find, use and cite and deliver on our mission to publish high quality trusted research quickly to help society find solutions to the world’s biggest challenges.

“I am thrilled to have Slimmer AI’s Science division join Springer Nature and expand our existing AI expertise. After years of successful collaboration I am excited to see how we can scale and accelerate the further improvements we believe AI can help us deliver throughout the research process for our authors and customers. ”

Heather Devereaux, Managing Director of Slimmer AI Science, said:

“It has been an honour to co-build transformative AI products together with Springer Nature over the past few years, and we’ve shared many successes and learnings.

“The synergies between our cultures and values, such as the responsible and ethical use of technology, a commitment to continuous improvement, and putting user need at the heart of product development, make this integration a natural fit and the perfect continuation of our journey. We’re thrilled to continue this exciting and important work together.”

This latest acquisition follows that of protocols.io, a secure platform for developing and sharing reproducible methods, and the launch of Curie, Springer Nature’s AI-powered scientific writing assistant.

Edinburgh University Press launches Subscribe to Open pilot for 2024

November 1, 2023

Edinburgh University Press (EUP) is launching a Subscribe to Open pilot in 2024 for two Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies journals – Afghanistan and the Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies – signifying our commitment to a sustainable and equitable Open Access (OA) transformation.

Subscribe to Open (S2O) is a collaborative OA model that relies on subscriptions to make content Open Access without the need for article processing charges. Under the S2O model, subscribers are offered continued access to their publication through the usual renewal process. If enough choose to renew, the publication is flipped to OA for that year’s volume.

Key benefits of Edinburgh Subscribe to Open:

Authors in participating journals can publish their articles Open Access, free of charge, eliminating the need for author processing fees (APCs) and ensuring full compliance with OA mandates.
Subscribers are guaranteed perpetual access to the purchased volume and receive exclusive access during the subscription term to the journal’s backfile.
We offer an Open Access Publish Guarantee which enables first authors at subscribing institutions to publish their articles OA, regardless of whether or not the volume itself is published OA.
Library subscribers contribute towards making the current volume(s) OA in perpetuity and offer support for the transition towards Open Access, without additional administrative effort.

Sarah McDonald, Head of Journals at Edinburgh University Press said, ‘We are excited to take the next steps in our Open Access journey and are hoping that this initial pilot will pave the way towards a larger S2O programme in future years.’

Wiley and German DEAL Consortium to Sign New 5-Year Agreement

October 23, 2023

Wiley today announced its intent to enter a new five-year agreement with the DEAL Consortium, a countrywide consortium representative of more than 1,000 academic institutions in Germany, commencing January 2024. Wiley and DEAL are creating a blueprint for the next phase of open access publishing to better meet the evolving needs of the scholarly community.

Wiley was the first publisher to sign an agreement with DEAL, which makes this partnership the most robust and long-lasting in Germany. Their new agreement will continue to provide authors at German institutions with open access publishing options across Wiley’s portfolio. This includes read access to all Wiley journal content. Importantly, the new agreement will deliver ever-more benefits for the German research system by:

Supporting institutions in the transition to OA and honoring the immense value learned societies bring to the scholarly community.
Recognizing the unique investment needs of journals that deliver multiple forms of impact to their researcher communities.
Enhancing infrastructure, including robust workflows to support authors, readers, and librarians, as well as approval and oversight for administrators for OA articles.
Supporting participating institutions with bespoke training and deepening collaboration with the well-established Wiley DEAL Advisory Board to monitor success.

“We’re extremely proud to build on five years of success with the DEAL Consortium and are committed to driving results for the German research community,” said Liz Ferguson, Senior Vice President, Wiley Research Publishing. “Our new commitment represents a next-generation model for the global scholarly community and showcases how publishers can support an open future.”

Prof. Günter M. Ziegler, president of Freie Universität Berlin and DEAL’s lead negotiator, said: “I am very pleased with the outcome of these negotiations, which resulted in a very good opt-in offer for libraries to provide open access publishing services to the German scientific community. We have achieved our goal of finding a sustainable model for German institutions and Wiley. I would like to express my gratitude to all parties involved in this collaborative process. The result is not only a very good continuation of the pioneering Wiley-DEAL contract 2019-2023, but also fosters a mutually rewarding partnership.”

Consensus on commercial terms has been achieved between the negotiating teams. The final agreement is expected to be signed in mid-November. Shortly thereafter, DEAL institutions will be invited to migrate to the new agreement to continue to benefit from well established, comprehensive open access publishing options and continued access to Wiley’s extensive portfolio of scholarly journals.

Wiley and DEAL will build on the unprecedented success achieved in their first five years of partnership, which has resulted in:

Nearly 100% of eligible hybrid DEAL articles published open access across Wiley’s portfolio.
90% of Wiley’s article output from Germany published open access.
Increased usage of research content in Germany by 83%, resulting in nearly 20 million full text downloads in 2022 alone.
Rapid growth in usage of German-authored content globally, especially in low-income countries

The original agreement with DEAL was one of Wiley’s first transformative open access agreements and a cornerstone of the publisher’s approach to open access. Wiley has signed open access agreements with approximately 80 partners worldwide, which cover over 2,500 institutions.

Springer Nature’s latest Transformative Agreement an important step in global transition to OA

October 23, 2023

Springer Nature has agreed a Transformative Agreement (TA) in Hong Kong with all member libraries of the Joint University Librarians Advisory Committee (JULAC). This is the publisher’s first TA in this important region and, with over 700 articles published OA each year, will be the region’s largest TA. With China now leading the world in terms of research output, it also marks a significant step forward in the global transition to OA.

The three year agreement, effective from 1^st January 2024, will allow affiliated researchers to publish OA in more than 1,900 hybrid journals published by Springer Nature. As part of the agreement, participating institutions retain access to all the journals they have subscribed to. As a result researchers in Hong Kong will benefit from:

Increased global visibility of their work – up to 6x more downloads than non-OA content (1).
Increased citations and engagement that OA provides (2).
Increased cross collaboration, and facilitation of global research due to greater reach of OA content.

Carolyn Honour, Chief Commercial Officer, Springer Nature said:

“Opening up research not only delivers increased reach and impact for authors but allows for greater engagement from society at large. This means research can be used by policy makers and others to help solve some of the world’s greatest challenges. OA uptake continues to increase in this important region and this agreement will help ensure more valuable research content is widely accessible to all to be used and reused. With this TA, we welcome the opportunity to further build on our long-standing partnership with JULAC so that researchers in Hong Kong can realise the benefits of OA.”

Flora Ng, JULAC Consortiall Chair, CIO and University Librarian of The University of Hong Kong, added:

“The agreement marks a significant step forward in promoting open science in our region and internationally. I appreciate all efforts Springer Nature has made to drive open science, especially their initiative in pioneering the Transformative Agreement to accelerate OA transition. We’ve been working together very pleasantly, and I thank them for their great support of JULAC. Standing at a new starting point, I am very excited about our next journey toward open science, and about all the benefits we will soon deliver to researchers in Hong Kong and to our member institutions.”

TA’s are the most sustainable and effective way to move towards a fully open environment at scale – not only increasing the publication of OA content but also supporting increased usage of subscription content. Springer Nature’s TAs now support researchers from over 3,500 institutions globally to publish OA. More on the publisher’s commitment can be found here, and the impact of its OA portfolio in its recent OA report.

1. https://group.springernature.com/gp/group/media/press-releases/new-research-from-springer-nature-confirms-value-in-gold-oa/19790988

2. https://openaccessreport.springernature.com/2022/

New Forum 13+ and Taylor & Francis transformative agreement to realize the benefits of open access for Germany’s researchers

October 23, 2023

Researchers in Germany will see a major boost to the reach and impact of their work as they join authors in other European countries benefitting from Taylor & Francis open access (OA) agreements.

A German library negotiation team under the umbrella of Forum 13+ and Taylor & Francis have announced a new three-year ‘read & publish’ deal, to begin in 2024. This will ensure researchers have continued access to Taylor & Francis journals and can choose OA for their articles in more than 2,000 Open Select (hybrid) titles.

These include journals under the Routledge imprint, one of the world’s largest Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) portfolios. It is anticipated that over 60% of articles published open access through the agreement will be in HSS subjects.

The agreement’s publishing allocation has been designed to enable all new articles with a corresponding author at one of the participating institutions to be made open access in hybrid Taylor & Francis journals.

German higher education and research institutions are now invited to join a consortium, with almost a hundred signaling their intention to do so during a consultation on the deal over the summer.

The consortium will be established and managed by the ZBW – Information Centre for Economics, a research-based information infrastructure for economics and a member of the German Leibniz Association.

Jens Lazarus, Head of Acquisition and Licensing at ZBW and lead negotiator for Forum 13+ said: “Taylor & Francis is one of the most important academic publishers in Germany, particularly in the social sciences and humanities. We are therefore pleased that we have concluded an agreement with Taylor & Francis that opens up comprehensive open access publishing opportunities. Authors from participating institutions will directly benefit from the advantages of open access publication. We have reached another milestone on the road to open access and look forward to working with T&F to take these developments even further.”

Alex Robinson, Chief Commercial Officer at Taylor & Francis, said: “Germany is a research and innovation powerhouse and we’re excited to see the global impact of that work maximized through our new open access partnership with Forum 13+.”

Robinson added: “Transformative agreements are now driving a significant proportion of Europe’s move to open access and making OA a straightforward choice for thousands more researchers. With the addition of Forum 13+, Taylor & Francis now has transformative agreements in 17 European countries, including Finland, The Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK.”

A recent report, ‘Accelerating open access in the UK’, explores in detail the first two years of Taylor & Francis’ OA partnership with the Jisc consortium and how it has boosted the global impact of research from UK institutions, particularly in the Arts & Humanities. Taylor & Francis expects the new agreement with Forum 13+ to fuel a similar acceleration for open research in Germany.

ResearchGate and Taylor & Francis partner to help researchers discover journals and access articles more easily

October 23, 2023

ResearchGate, the professional network for researchers, and Taylor & Francis, a world-renowned academic publisher, today announced a new partnership, with 200 Taylor & Francis journals now available for researchers to discover on ResearchGate.

All 200 titles will benefit from enhanced visibility and engagement through ResearchGate’s innovative Journal Homeoffering. Each journal will have a dedicated profile, accessible throughout the ResearchGate platform, and will be prominently represented on associated article pages and relevant touch points across the network.

Researchers will also be able read more than 100,000 version-of-record open access articles directly on the ResearchGate platform. Additional articles from 70 fully open access Taylor & Francis journals will continue to be added to this number as they are published in the future.

Taylor & Francis has long been at the forefront of academic publishing, covering ground-breaking research from across the sciences, humanities, and social sciences. This partnership supports the publisher’s commitment to accelerate access to knowledge by increasing readership and engaging new audiences through ResearchGate’s community of 25 million researchers.

“We are thrilled to embark on this first step with Taylor & Francis,” said Sören Hofmayer, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at ResearchGate. “Our two organizations share the fundamental belief that research should be as discoverable as possible to accelerate scientific progress. ResearchGate’s unique researcher ecosystem offers an innovative and trusted route to build readership and visibility for these journals, and I’m excited to see how the partnership progresses.”

“We are delighted to be working with ResearchGate,” added Leon Heward-Mills, Managing Director of Researcher Services at Taylor & Francis. “Journal Home will help the platform’s global community of researchers both find and access the journals they need more easily. We’re also looking forward to building on our partnership with ResearchGate and exploring other opportunities to support authors in reaching and engaging new audiences.”

DOAJ reaches 20,000 journals

October 19, 2023

Today, the DOAJ team is happy to share a significant milestone with our community: the Directory of Open Access Journals now proudly lists 20,000 journals! This achievement is not just a number; it is a testament to our rigorous evaluation process and dedication to ensuring the trustworthiness and quality of scholarly journals in our index. For 20 years, DOAJ has been at the forefront of advocating for open access and facilitating access to reliable academic research. For the DOAJ team, this milestone reflects the tremendous growth of the open access movement and our commitment to transparency and best practice in journal publishing. As the number of journals increases, so does the potential for sharing knowledge, connecting researchers, and advancing science and scholarship.

Behind the curtain: The DOAJ Editorial team

Behind this impressive number lies an even more impressive effort to evaluate journals and maintain their credibility. The DOAJ team’s dedication to examining each journal against a strict set of criteria ensures that we index only journals meeting high-quality standards. Together with our efforts to investigate questionable publishing practices and verify the legitimacy of journals, this quality assurance is the backbone of DOAJ’s mission to provide a reliable platform for scholarly communication.

A journal’s journey

Many people I speak to at conferences and events are surprised at the scale of our operation and know little about the process a journal follows before we add it to the index. After initial checks by our triage team, applications are distributed to one of our teams of specially trained volunteers from across the world who have chosen to contribute their expertise in scholarly publishing, language skills and passion for open access – a total of 2,500 hours each year. Each journal application is carefully evaluated against our criteria covering everything from copyright and licensing to peer review and transparency around aims and scope, editorial boards and author charges. The final decision to accept or reject a journal application is made by one of our Managing Editors. Rejected journals receive feedback on the changes they must make before reapplying. Many journal editors are grateful for this step, which supports them in enhancing the standard of their journals.

In 2022, we received 8,000 applications from journals to be indexed in DOAJ. 2086 of these were successful. Each one of them went through this thorough process.

The DOAJ Quality Team: Scholarly publishing sleuths

Protecting the reputation of the journals in our index is a responsibility that we don’t take lightly. As well as our routine work to evaluate journal applications, we undertake investigations where we suspect that there is evidence of fraudulent practice. This can be uncovered as part of our standard evaluation process, or if a community member has contacted us with concerns about a title, or in response to external sources such as Retraction Watch. Each year, our Quality Team undertakes around 270 in-depth investigations, analysing journals for misleading or deceptive information and unethical practices. These investigations can result in the exclusion of a journal or publisher from DOAJ.

Evolving our criteria: Navigating the changing scholarly publishing landscape

Scholarly publishing continues to evolve, and our Editorial Team invests resources in keeping abreast of changes and ensuring that we adapt our standards, criteria and processes as needed. Behind the scenes, we work actively with partners like COPE, OASPA and WAME to address the challenges of unethical publishing methods to ensure that we continue to index only journals that meet standards of good practice.

Maintaining trust: The true value

In an era where information is abundant but not always trustworthy, the importance of maintaining trust in scholarly journals cannot be overstated. Researchers, students, and academics rely on credible sources for their work. Librarians want to integrate trusted journals into their catalogues and services. Funders need to know that the research they fund is published in reputable sources. Publishers want to demonstrate that they comply with best practice in scholarly publishing. DOAJ plays a pivotal role within the community in ensuring that the open access journals we list meet those expectations.

Fueling the future of trusted journals together

As the number of journals in DOAJ continues to grow, so do the challenges and costs associated with evaluating and maintaining them. Our work is thorough, labour-intensive, and requires ongoing resources, expertise, and dedication. Sustaining this effort requires the support of the entire academic community.

How you can support us

Spread the Word: Share the importance of DOAJ and its role in maintaining trust in scholarly publishing and encourage your library, institution or publisher to support us.

Make a personal contribution through Paypal: Financial contributions, no matter how small, can help sustain the work of DOAJ. Your donation goes directly into ensuring the quality and integrity of listed journals.

Go to Paypal donation page

Reaching the milestone of 20,000 journals in DOAJ is a celebration of the open access movement. But there is still so much to do. The Diamond Open Access Journals Study from 2021 and last year’s PKP research on the number of journals using OJS software demonstrate that many more open access journals worldwide could benefit from the quality assurance and visibility that DOAJ indexing provides. We rely on our community to work with us to bring these journals into the index, both by advocating for us at a local and regional level, and through financial support. We remain dedicated to maintaining trust in scholarly publishing and trust that our community will share the ongoing commitment required to ensure that open access lives up to its promise of accessible, reliable, and high-quality research.

Fair Global Pricing: Consultation

October 19, 2023

cOAlition S commissioned Information Power to explore how a globally fair pricing framework for academic publishing could be devised and implemented. The key objective of this project was to identify ways in which readers and producers of scholarly publications or their proxies – research funders and universities – can financially contribute to supporting academic publishing services in a globally equitable and sustainable manner.

The Information Power team have developed a fairer global pricing framework and tool, based on open and transparent data, that can be used across the spectrum of publishing business models. Information Power emphasizes the need for close dialogue between stakeholders and careful use of the tool to ensure the framework is deployed in ways that work well for customers and advance equity. If applied by publishers without dialogue, transparency, and in alignment with shared principles, then differential pricing can be – and has been – wielded as a blunt instrument to do ill.

How can this framework be used in practice? In a nutshell:

To ensure equity from the beginning, publishers can use the framework for new services.
To improve equity, publishers might want to shift existing services to this new framework. A tool is available to help publishers explore the most suitable banding and model the impact on different customers.
Exchange rate fluctuations can be a barrier to equity in some countries. Publishers could help customers by converting prices once a year into local currencies. These local prices would be fixed for 12 months. A tool is available to help publishers model the impact of this.

Join the webinar

While in draft, the Information Power team would like to consult with the funder, library/consortium, and publisher communities about the framework and tool. Based on feedback received during this consultation, we will finalize the framework and tool. To facilitate this dialogue, cOAlition S is hosting a webinar on 12 October at 4 pm CEST, during which the Information Power team will explain the framework and tool in more detail.

To participate in the webinar, please use this link: Register now.

* NEW* View the recording of the webinar on YouTube (transcript available here)

Share your thoughts – take the survey

After you have had a chance to read the framework, explore the tool and – if you wish – attend the webinar, Information Power invites you to share your thoughts via this survey: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/GlobalEquity (open until 31 October). Your feedback will be important in informing our final approach and developing the final version of the framework and tool.

Springer Nature and authors successfully use generative AI to publish academic book

October 18, 2023

As part of an innovative experiment, Springer Nature has become the first publisher to create a whole new academic book by empowering authors to use GPT as part of the integrated workflow. Developed during a ‘Hack Day’ in the Spring which brought together authors, editors and experts from across Springer Nature, the German-language book Einsatzmöglichkeiten von GPT in Finance, Compliance und Audit (Applications of GPT in finance, compliance and audit) has now been published. It took less than five months from inception to publication – about half the time normally taken.

The team wanted to see whether generative AI tools can help authors save time when writing their manuscripts and make their knowledge available more quickly, while maintaining a high level of quality. The experiment also showed that the technology can lower barriers for people who, for various reasons, find it difficult to write and would not be able to author a book without assistance. However, it became clear that authors with their expertise and high-quality editing continue to play an essential role in ensuring high quality content.

The process was as follows:

Working simultaneously on six screens, the team defined commands which GPT then executed chapter by chapter to create the first version of the manuscript
At each stage of the process, the content generated by the Large Language Model (LLM) was reviewed by the authors, who then asked the machine to adapt the text
This “prompt ping pong” ensured that the knowledge expertise of the authors renowned in their field was combined with the language expertise of the LLM
After the Hack Day, the authors and Springer Nature’s editorial team further checked, corrected and supplemented the text
The team then linked the relevant data sources to ensure proper attribution

Henning Schoenenberger, Vice President Content Innovation at Springer Nature, commented: “Given the challenges humanity faces today, as a scientific publisher we are always looking for new ways to accelerate the dissemination of knowledge and thus the development of new insights. Rapidly developing technologies such as Artificial Intelligence offer enormous potential here, but there are also risks. Our job is to ensure responsible use of these tools in the interests of science. This is only possible through human oversight of technology.”

Quick and easy access to trusted science is key to accelerating discovery, as demonstrated by the search for vaccines during the pandemic. AI has the potential to accelerate this yet further. Springer Nature builds on this experience by using technology and AI tools, all of which it is deploying alongside human intervention and with human oversight, to further help the research community. In 2019, the company published the world’s first machine-generated research book. Springer Nature also trials AI to translate or summarise scientific publications, to match research papers with suitable peer reviewers and to detect plagiarism.

At Frankfurt Book Fair, Springer Nature will present both the process and the book to the public. In the interactive workshopSynergie von Mensch und Maschine – Vorstellung eines Prototyps zum KI-assistierten Schreiben eines Fachbuchs (Synergy of human and machine – presentation of a prototype for AI-assisted writing of a textbook) on 20th October 2023 from 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. (THE LÄND booth, Hall 3.1, J16), the project team will give a live demonstration how the use of GPT supports book authors from idea generation to conceptualisation and manuscript production.

About the authors

Alexander Hüsch is Vice President Accounting, Tax & Treasury of an international IT services group. He has 15 years of experience in leadership roles in finance at various companies. Prior to that, he worked as an auditor and tax consultant in a medium-sized auditing firm.

Dirk Distelrath is Director Consulting & Digital Compliance at an auditing firm, where he focuses on digital transformation, cloud and innovation.

Tanja Hüsch is Head of Internal Audit & Risk Management at a Nasdaq-listed metasearch company. Here, she is responsible for SOX 404 compliance, among other things. She has extensive experience in leading roles in auditing and as an auditor and tax advisor.