Digital Science, a technology company serving stakeholders across the research ecosystem, is pleased to announce that Cranfield University has selected Symplectic Elements from Digital Science’s flagship products to manage its research information outputs and activities.
Cranfield University is unique within the UK HEI sector as an exclusively postgraduate University which has distinctive expertise in science, technology, engineering and management and how these work together to benefit the world. The University partners with businesses, academia, government and organisations around the world to deliver applied research and innovative education in Aerospace, Defence and Security, Energy and Sustainability, Environment and Agrifood, Leadership and Management, Manufacturing and Materials, Transport Systems and Water.
Symplectic Elements was selected following a comprehensive tender process to identify a Current Research Information Management System (CRIS) that would store, manage, and showcase its research publications, researcher profiles and associated activities. Cranfield was seeking a solution that would allow it to ingest and link data from multiple sources, seeing their research outputs in context, which supports their REF submission process.
“We chose Symplectic Elements as it offers a comprehensive solution that aligns perfectly with our specific research management needs,” said Tim Wales, University Librarian at Cranfield University. “Its ability to efficiently organise research outputs, manage researcher profiles, and seamlessly integrate with internal and external systems, coupled with features like internal research assessment support and flexible self-service reporting, make it the ideal choice for showcasing and managing our research activity effectively. It will also significantly reduce the amount of research administration time expended by our researchers, professional staff and librarians compared to our old system.”
“We are thrilled to be selected by Cranfield as their trusted partner for managing their research information needs,” said Jonathan Breeze, CEO of Symplectic. “We look forward to collaborating with Cranfield and contributing to its vision of delivering transformational research that meets the needs of business, government and wider society.”
First Taylor & Francis Transformative Agreement in Southeast Asia
Researchers at Mahidol University in Thailand will be supported to publish open access (OA) journal articles through a new ‘read & publish’ partnership with Taylor & Francis. The three-year deal is Taylor & Francis’ first transformative agreement in Southeast Asia.
Corresponding authors at the leading Thai university can now choose to publish OA in over 2,000 Taylor & Francis Open Select (hybrid) journals, boosting the reach of their research. Mahidol faculty and students will also continue to have access to journals across a broad range of subjects.
The increase in OA outputs will support Mahidol University’s mission to excel in research for the benefit of humankind, by ensuring readers everywhere can access its world class work.
Asst. Prof. Nopphol Pausawasdi, Director of Mahidol University Library and Knowledge Center, said: “We are very pleased with this transformative agreement with Taylor & Francis, as it not only enables unrestricted access to Mahidol publications but it will also enrich our research and benefit the entire field.”
Ian Jones, VP and APAC Commercial Lead at Taylor & Francis, added: “We’re delighted that our first transformative agreement in Southeast Asia is with Mahidol University, an institution highly regarded for its research across health, sciences, arts and innovation. We look forward to working with them to maximize the impact of this open access partnership.”
Springer Nature has agreed a Transformative Agreement (TA) with the National Academic Network and Information Centre (TÜBITAK ULAKBIM). With over 2,400 open access (OA) articles published a year, it will be Turkey’s largest TA, significantly increasing scientific research and OA opportunities for the country’s researchers.
The three year agreement, effective as of January 2024, will enable approximately three million affiliated researchers from across 236 institutions to publish OA in Springer Nature’s 2000+ hybrid journals. As part of the agreement, researchers at these institutions will also have full access to subscription articles across the Springer, Palgrave, Adis, Academic Journals and Nature journals portfolios.
Speaking of the partnership, Asdaa Kotani, Vice President of Institutional Sales, Springer Nature commented:
“We are delighted to be partnering with TÜBITAK ULAKBIM in making Turkish research immediately available for researchers around the world to use and build on. Turkish authors will also now benefit from the increased reach and usage of their work which comes from it being published OA – while being able to access research across a number of our portfolios. Springer Nature has been committed to OA for over 20 years. We were the first to publish one million articles OA and now support authors from over 3,600 institutions across six continents in publishing OA. This new agreement is an important demonstration of the flexibility and customer-first approach of our TAs and shows the important role they are playing in enabling the global OA transition.”
TAs are proven to be the most effective sustainable way to achieve OA growth and transition at scale. In the publisher’s latest OA report data showed that its TAs were delivering three times more OA articles in Springer hybrid titles, and enabling country level flips to OA where the publisher has a TA in place.
Mehmet Mirat Satoğlu, TÜBITAK ULAKBIM Director and board member said of the agreement:
“We have championed OA for a long time and this new agreement is a major step on that road, enabling a significant increase in OA publishing from Turkey. TÜBITAK is committed to supporting open science and OA globally, and as part of our efforts, the TÜBITAK Open Science Policy was adopted by the TÜBITAK Board of Directors in 2019. These steps help align the Turkish Research Area and the European Research Area, increasing the visibility and impact of our scientific publications. We hope this agreement will contribute to the global efforts towards achieving our common open science goals.”
More on the TA can be found here. More on the publisher’s commitment to OA and the impact of its portfolio can be found here and here.
Expansion of pilot transformative agreements with the Research Universities Consortium and launch of a new transformative agreement model in Japan will see more than double the number of articles published open access in 2024.
Springer Nature has expanded its innovative pilot 2023 transformative agreement (TA) in Japan from 10 to 21 universities, all of which are part of the Research Universities Consortium (RUC). Researchers affiliated with any of the participating institutions in Japan, can receive funding support to publish open access (OA) in over 2,000 hybrid journals published by Springer Nature. In addition, as part of the agreements, researchers of the participating institutions have access to research published in Springer Nature journals across the Springer, Palgrave Macmillan and Adis portfolios and in the Academic Journals on nature.com (1).
Furthermore, to help smaller institutions also benefit from OA publishing, the publisher is launching in 2024 a new TA model in Japan, J-SPRINTA (Japan Springer Research Institute Transformative Agreement), which will see 13 universities initially participate. This new TA model enables non-RUC institutions, regardless of whether they have a subscription to a Springer journal package, to enter a three-year TA with Springer Nature giving their researchers funding support to publish OA in Springer Nature’s hybrid journals. In addition, at a relatively low additional cost, institutions are also offered access to Springer Nature journals as well as the publishing service, making the new TA model much more cost effective than traditional subscription journal package models. Institutions that are eligible for J-SPRINTA are those which are expected to publish more than five articles a year.
Both the RUC TA and J-SPRINTA will allow institutions to transition at a speed suitable for their institution by offering the opportunity to fully or partially transform their research output to OA. For example, it will see all papers from authors at seven RUC universities, including the University of Tokyo, as well as three non-RUC universities, published Gold OA, meaning they will be immediately available for all to use and reuse from the point of publication. Additionally, 24 (14 RUC and 10 non-RUC) academic institutions have reached an agreement to partially transition and will see a fixed percentage of papers*2 from their authors published OA.
Commenting, Dr. Amane Koizumi, Project Professor, National Institutes of Natural Sciences which is an organising member of Research University Consortium (RUC) said:
“In Japan, the groundbreaking TA with Springer Nature, which started with 10 universities, has expanded to many universities, and I feel that the open access of research publications from Japan is progressing. The Japanese government has indicated a policy of immediate 100% open access from 2025, and I hope that each university will further promote open access to strengthen its research capabilities”
Antoine Bocquet, Vice President Sales Japan, Southeast Asia and Oceania and Managing Director of Springer Nature Japan said:
“I am delighted that Springer Nature has expanded the agreement with Japanese institutions and has also launched J-SPRINTA opening doors to smaller institutions, to further drive the transition to OA. Using a flexible model specifically designed to meet the needs of Japanese institutions, in two years participation in our TAs has expanded from 10 to 34 universities accounting for the publication of over 1,800 OA articles”
“Latest data from our pilot TA in Japan shows that on average, OA articles are downloaded over 6 times and that their Altmetric attention scores are approximately 8 times higher compared to non-OA articles, which is in line with our global average or higher. I am pleased that this customized framework for Japan ensures an increase in global visibility of Japanese research by enabling more researchers to publish their work OA. Researchers in Japan can benefit from the potential increase in citations and downloads for their research, together with sustainable access to Springer Nature’s journals”
The new agreements will start from January 2024 and will see over 1,800 articles(3) published OA in 2024, which is approximately double the number of OA articles published in 2023 via the TAs. This also covers approximately 30% of all Springer Nature OA articles published annually by researchers from Japanese universities affiliated with the JUSTICE (Japan Alliance of University Library Consortia for E-Resources) consortium. Currently, participating institutions include national universities such as the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Osaka University, Tohoku University, and Nagoya University, private universities such as Waseda University, Tokyo Medical University and Ritsumeikan University, as well as the graduate school, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. The list of all participating institutions can be viewed on our “Open access agreements for Japan” page, where researchers can check their institution’s eligibility.
The participating institutions will retain reading access to all existing journals to which they currently have access. Other RUC member universities and non-RUC institutions including government research institutions, which are expected to publish more than 5 articles annually, are invited to join the agreement.
(1)Participating institutions have access to journal titles to which they currently have a subscription.
(2)Number of papers is calculated based on publication output in the previous year.
(3)The sum of articles in Japan from the pilot TA and J-SPRINTA.
Wiley has become a signatory of United2Act, an initiative committed to addressing the collective challenge of paper mills in scholarly publishing.
We are pleased to announce that Wiley have endorsed the United2Act initiative, which represents a multi-stakeholder strategy dedicated to addressing the issue of paper mills and systematic manipulation at play in research and scholarly publishing.
This initiative recognizes several challenges to research integrity that require coordination across the research and publishing ecosystem, acknowledging that all stakeholders play specific roles, and that we will be most effective by working together. At its heart is a commitment to collaboration and bringing together the expertise to act on a coordinated strategy that addresses this pressing challenge at all points in the research and publishing lifecycle.
To develop and create new educational resources and to promote education and awareness activities to make researchers, journals editors, reviewers, journals, and publishers aware of the problem of paper mills.
Improve post-publication corrections
To investigate and agree ways to improve communication with those who report misconduct to journals, and agree ways in which the correction of the literature can be expedited once misconduct has been discovered.
To research paper mills
To work collaboratively with interested parties to facilitate and organise research on paper mills, with particular attention paid to the regional and subject specific aspects of paper mills.
Enable the development of trust markers
To work with the various suppliers who are developing tools which verify the identity of authors/reviewers/editors to ensure that the solutions work for the variety of authors and author choice, and are fit for purpose.
Continue to facilitate dialogue between stakeholders about the systematic manipulation of the publication process.
Continue to bring together the many voices and stakeholders in this area through joint projects and initiatives to combat the issue of paper mills.
Wiley will support and advance these actions through our Working Group engagement and leadership as well as a commitment to apply what we learn together to our own publishing processes and strategy. We believe that transparency and openness about these challenges is critical to finding solutions; we have detailed our own approach to addressing systematic manipulation at scale in the following whitepaper, published in December 2023: “Tackling publication manipulation at scale: Hindawi’s journey and lessons for academic publishing”. In publishing this whitepaper, we provide context on the multiple routes to systematic manipulation, including paper mills, authorship for sale, and the coordinated manipulation of the peer review process.
The United2Act initiative is a significant step forward in this journey; it provides a framework for the scholarly community to come together to promote transparency, integrity, and resilience in the face of these evolving challenges. At Wiley, we look forward to bringing our expertise, experience, and leadership to this important work.
Enago is delighted to announce a new collaboration with scientifyRESEARCH, https://www.scientifyresearch.org/ to provide access to publication support services for its global community of academics. ScientifyRESEARCH’s funding database helps researchers quickly identify funding sources best-suited to them. Researchers use the ScientifyRESEARCH platform to gather information on grants, scholarships, fellowships, and events. Enago is a preferred partner providing author services for researchers, societies, publishers, universities, and institutions around the world.
Judy Mielke, Founder, scientifyRESEARCH commented on the announcement. At scientifyRESEARCH, we excel in rapidly supplying researchers with precise details on ideal grants. Excitingly, we’re partnering with Enago to extend our support services, empowering researchers for greater advancements in their research journey.”
“Enago is committed to establishing strategic partnerships with forward-thinking organizations like scientifyRESEARCH, who is revolutionizing the way researchers find funding sources,” says Rajiv Shirke, Vice President, Global Operations at Enago. “We are therefore thrilled to collaborate with scientifyRESEARCH and play an active role in supporting its users by offering a suite of tailored language services and help them achieve their publication goals and establish a successful research career.”
ResearchGate, the professional network for researchers, and BMJ, a global leader in healthcare knowledge provision and a pioneer in open access (OA), today announced an agreement to make six BMJ OA journals available on the ResearchGate platform. This collaboration will provide wider reach and visibility to researchers, starting January 2024, and enhance accessibility to valuable healthcare knowledge.
The agreement covers a diverse set of BMJ’s OA journals highly pertinent to medical researchers: BMJ Global Health; BMJ Medicine; BMJ Neurology Open; BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care; BMJ Open Opthalmology; and the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer. All version-of-record content from these six journals, including newly published articles and archive material, will be made available to ResearchGate’s highly relevant community of more than 25 million researchers globally.
Additionally, Journal Home will provide an enhanced online presence for the participating journals, with dedicated profiles for each journal and prominent journal visibility across all associated articles and touchpoints on ResearchGate. Potential authors will find a central location for each journal where they can learn more, discover relevant article content, and understand how, through their network, they are connected to the journal’s community of authors and editors.
Authors publishing in these BMJ journals will enjoy the added advantage of their articles seamlessly integrated into their ResearchGate profiles, granting access to comprehensive statistics illustrating the impact of their work, such as readership and citations. This feature offers a distinctive opportunity for authors to engage and connect with their audience directly, fostering meaningful connections within the research community.
Claire Rawlinson, Director of Publishing Strategy & Transformation, BMJ said: “Our partnership with ResearchGate signifies BMJ’s dedication to providing our authors with innovative avenues to connect with their audience. Enabling our content to reach the vibrant research community on ResearchGate directly promises to amplify accessibility of key medical research and foster greater engagement among researchers.”
“We are delighted to see these BMJ titles, promoting crucial health research, now accessible from the ResearchGate platform,” said Sören Hofmayer, Chief Strategy Officer at ResearchGate. “BMJ has long championed open access and recognises the importance of delivering research directly to where readers are. By bringing these titles into Journal Home, we will expand their visibility to a new global audience.”
We are delighted to share that the Research and Scholarly Publishing Forum (RSPF) will returnto The London Book Fair, Olympia Theatre on Thursday 14th March (9:30 – 14:30 BST), covering the core topics of academic publishing policy, AI, and open access.
The full Conference programme can be viewed here. Specifically, the Forum will include the following five discussion presentations…
In Conversation Keynote: Successful Transformation Comes from Within
Strategies and Trends in Academic Publishing
ALPSP in partnership with Publishers’ Licensing Services
The Transformative Influence of AI on Academic Publishing
Evolving the Role of Open Access
The publishing forum will be welcomed by the Chair’s Opening Remarks, Gareth Rapley, Director of The London Book Fair, and Rob Johnson, Managing Director of Research Consulting.
Other speaker highlights include Antonia Seymour, Chief Executive of IOP Publishing and President of the Publishing Association; Pooja Aggarwal, Director of Academic and Professional Publishing at Bloomsbury; Richard Mollet, Head of European Government Affairs at RELX; and Vitoria Eva, Vice President of Global Policy & Industry of Global Policy at Elsevier.
Berlin-based startup closed Series B funding round led by Molten Ventures with an eye to leading the market in workflow solutions that enable academic societies and publishers to protect research integrity and publish with confidence
Morressier, the Berlin-based startup transforming scholarly communications, today announced it has attracted $16.5m in investment in a Series B round led by Molten Ventures and with the participation of existing investors including Redalpine, Owl Ventures, and Cherry Ventures. This growth investment follows the company’s $16m (€15m) Series A round communicated in May 2021, and will be topped up with further funding for acquisition opportunities.
Morressier counts some of the industry’s leading players in the scientific ecosystem as customers, including: IOP Publishing, AAAS, ASCE, APS, and Mayo Clinic. The company will use its Series B growth capital for continued product innovation, scaling its go-to-market activities, including the institutional and corporate market, and to expand partnerships with leading research integrity vendors.
Sami Benchekroun, Morressier co-founder and CEO: “Attracting such strong support from investors in this climate is the ultimate validation that Morressier is doing critical work. Science is experiencing an integrity crisis and this investment will help us to double down on our efforts to support academic societies, institutions and publishers in this fight.”
Christoph Hornung, partner at Molten Ventures said, “There is a massive need for a new infrastructure in the science world, and we are convinced that Morressier with its highly experienced team will be shaping the new structure of this industry in the following years.”
Morressier recently announced its Integrity Manager, designed to protect research integrity at every step of the publishing journey. The company already offers scientific researchers a suite of pre-submission checks to ensure submission completeness, quality, and help comply with industry standards. Integrity tools are also being developed into Journal Manager, a state-of-the-art journal submission system under development, with IOP Publishing on board as the first major client.
Research integrity threats are a growing and evolving issue, with a study showing 34% of neuroscience papers published in 2020 were likely made up or plagiarized. One in five articles published in journals may contain faked data produced by “paper mills” that are paid to fabricate scientific submissions, according to a study by German researchers who used new techniques to “red flag” problematic papers.
Othman Altalib, Morressier Chief Growth Officer: “Deepening our partnerships across the scholarly publishing industry is core to Morressier’s growth: it ensures that we remain aligned with and supportive of stakeholder needs. This latest investment is going to be of huge benefit to our customers and the broader scholarly publishing community, as we up the ante in the research integrity arms race on their behalf.”
Miriam Maus, Chief Publishing Officer at IOP Publishing: “We see our partnership with Morressier as a real opportunity to reimagine the publishing experience for our authors and reviewers. By building a new submission and peer review system around the needs of the research community, we can optimise our workflows in ways that will make a real difference. As we work to enhance the publishing process, the validity of the science we publish is always front of mind and so we welcome the news of this latest investment in Morressier. It will strengthen their game in rising to the evolving challenges of research integrity.”
Morressier has been actively strengthening its team since the investment, attracting a wealth of experience into key roles at the executive level and across the team, with a number of recruitment processes ongoing.
The American Journal of Nursing(AJN) has awarded Wolters Kluwer Health with eight Book of the Year awards, showcasing the company’s ongoing leadership in and dedication to the nursing industry. The accolades recognize excellence across several industry focus areas including adult primary care, nursing education/professional development, digital products, medical-surgical nursing and nursing research.
Since its initial publication in 1969, AJN’s Book of the Year program has been a prestigious competition that the nursing industry turns to for trusted recommendations and to inform purchasing decisions. The awards span 20 categories and are closely followed by the journal’s readership which is comprised of nurses in clinical settings, faculty, and researchers, as well as librarians in hospitals and universities.
“The AJN Book of the Year awards are always an exciting kick-off to the New Year, as the nursing industry eagerly awaits which titles and technologies will top the list. Wolters Kluwer takes immense pride in having our software solutions, titles and services being honored on this list,” said Julie Stegman, Vice President, Health Learning & Practice at Wolters Kluwer Health. “In multiple instances these award-winning offerings were created through key relationships with organizations like the National League for Nursing and Laerdal to bring trusted resources and expertise to the industry. Through these collaborations, we can execute on a shared vision of promoting excellence in nursing education and support the advancement of the nursing profession overall.”
First place winners
Digital Products/Medical-Surgical category: vrClinicals for Nursing – Wolters Kluwer and Laerdal
Judges remarked: “The courses and assignments are easy for faculty to set up, and the ability to quickly toggle from educator view to student view and back is a great option. The virtual environment is easy to navigate, with clear and realistic visuals and scenarios. Notably, students get to see the impact of their decision-making when they see the patient in a second round.”
What the judges had to say: “In today‘s health care landscape, the quality of nursing education is paramount, and this book offers a comprehensive guide to the evaluation of nursing programs—a topic of critical importance. What sets this text apart is its ability to simplify complex evaluation concepts. Marilyn H. Oermann adeptly takes the often-intimidating process of program evaluation and breaks it down into clear, comprehensible steps.”
The American Journal of Nursing is one of the most well regarded, peer reviewed and evidence-based, nursing journals in the world. AJN’s mission is to promote excellence in nursing and health care through the dissemination of evidence-based, peer-reviewed clinical information and original research, discussion of relevant and controversial professional issues, adherence to the standards of journalistic integrity and excellence, and promotion of nursing perspectives to the health care community and the public.
Wiley, BMJ, Brill, Cabells and Crossref join Springer Nature, SAGE, Royal Society of Chemistry, American Chemical Society and American Society of Civil Engineers
Kudos, the platform for showcasing research, has announced impressive growth in its Sustainable Development initiatives. Kudos helps the publishing sector act on and accelerate the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, in two way. Firstly, Kudos helps publishers to identify, explain, showcase and promote research that is relevant to the Goals. Secondly, the company is launching a landmark piece of market research to explore the research sector’s needs in relation to SDG research and publications.
The latest publishing organizations to join these Kudos initiatives are Wiley, BMJ, Brill, Cabells and Crossref.
BMJ: Claire Rawlinson, Director of Publishing Strategy & Transformation explains: “BMJ is keen to showcase our SDG commitments, progress, and content. Kudos has a good track record of reaching the broad range of target audiences that we must influence to improve health outcomes.”
Brill: Dominique de Roo, Vice President of Marketing and Communication, chose to grow the company’s relationship with Kudos: “Brill is a leader in Humanities, Social Sciences, and International Law publishing – all areas of scholarship that are vital for addressing today‘s global challenges. As we expand our publication of SDG-focused research, we also need to expand our efforts to disseminate this research widely, and we’re happy to partner with Kudos in this mission.”
Cabells: Lucas Toutloff, Chief Technical Officer, says: “Cabells launched the industry’s first indicator of SDG Impact Intensity™, and we continue to explore and support ways for our sector to drive SDG-related impact. We’re excited to join Kudos in researching the influence of the SDG framework on scholarly activities and publications.”
Crossref: Ginny Hendricks, Director of Member & Community Outreach, notes that: “We’re delighted to support this cross-sector research project that will, among other things, help expand our understanding of what metadata is needed to help track SDG relevance and impact.”
Wiley: Dr Jo Wixon, Director External Analysis, comments: “Wiley is a signatory of the SDG Publishers Compact, and we’re committed to advancing sustainability. Working with Kudos and other partners, we can better understand where more support is needed to help researchers, funders, universities and policy makers undertake and communicate SDG research more effectively.”
Social sciences are the key ingredients to ensure research and innovation in the UK are fully optimized – that is the finding of a new report by the Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS), which has been co-authored by Digital Science using data from Dimensions.
The report is being launched at an event in London today where the vital yet often poorly understood contributions of the social sciences to the UK’s research and innovation system will be discussed.
The secret sauce itself comes in the shape of four key ingredients:
Social sciences enable whole-systems thinking
Social sciences are critical for good policy development
Social sciences underpin smart and responsible innovation
Social sciences are essential to international collaboration and tackling shared global challenges.
Key to the development of the report was the use of Dimensions, the world’s largest collection of linked research data. To understand the breadth and depth of collaborative research in the UK, the report’s authors employed ‘out-of-the-box’ elements of Digital Science’s Dimensions’ database, specifically: Landmark research analysis, focusing on citations of cross-disciplinary research involving social science and STEM; cluster analysis, based on existing published work in relevant areas; and research trajectory analysis for STEM, social sciences and cross-disciplinary research from both.
The aim of the report is not only to highlight the crucial role and value that the social sciences offer to research and innovation in the UK, but to provide evidence to decision makers to encourage policy initiatives that better facilitate research and partnerships that cross STEM and social science disciplinary boundaries. For example, Dimensions data shows that social science research makes a significant contribution towards exploring the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), surpassing STEM inputs across several individual SDGs (see figure 7).
Commenting on the release, co-author and Digital Science VP Research Evaluation and Global Challenges Dr Juergen Wastl said: “The report is a mixture of data-driven work and analysis, and the examples shared in the report showcase the essential role social sciences play in areas often regarded as purely STEM-focused, as well as the amplifying effect collaborative work can have across STEM and social science fields.
“Research that involves partnerships across these areas from the start can have a stronger impact and be more useful to policymakers.”
The report’s co-authors are Kathryn Weber-Boer, Digital Science’s Technical Product Specialist, Dimensions & Altmetric; Prof James Wilsdon FAcSS, Professor of Research Policy at University College London (UCL) and Executive Director of the Research on Research Institute (RoRI); and Dr Ed Bridges, Head of Policy & Public Affairs at the Academy of Social Sciences.
