Wiley, one of the world’s largest publishers and a global leader in scientific research and career-connected education, today announced that it has signed or renewed 22 transformational open access agreements with partners across the United States and Mexico.
These agreements, which all begin in 2023, span individual universities, research labs, and academic consortia across 18 U.S. states and Mexico. They allow participating institutions access to all of Wiley’s hybrid and subscription journals and grant researchers the ability to publish accepted articles open access across Wiley’s extensive publishing portfolio.
The majority of these agreements represent new partnerships for Wiley, with some representing expanded access and/or renewed agreements within existing partnerships.
In total, these agreements cover 117 institutions and will make an estimated 3,600 articles open access, accelerating the pace of open access publishing in North America.
“The open access movement continues to gather pace across North America, and we’re extremely proud to partner with so many leading institutions to make more research more widely available,” said Kathryn Sharples, Vice President, Open Research, Wiley.
Wiley continues to prioritize partnership with libraries and library consortia as a means of driving open access forward. Recently, it expanded its agreements with the University of California and the Big Ten Academic Alliance in the United States, while also signing new agreements in Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, Türkiye and India earlier this year.
A full list of participating partners includes:
Individual Institutions: University of Alabama at Birmingham, Brandeis University, Carnegie Mellon University, Colorado State University, Montana State University, Princeton University, Southern Methodist University, Syracuse University, UMass Lowell, West Virginia University, Texas Tech University Health Services Center, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Portland State University, Northeastern University, Texas A&M University, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN (CINVESTAV), University of North Texas Health Science Center, Washington State University, and Texas Christian University.
Consortia: The Carolina Consortium, and the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC).
Data from Springer Nature shows TAs powering 3x OA growth across all disciplines
New data from Springer Nature shows the vital role transformative agreements (TAs) are playing in driving the global transition to open access (OA). They are the main reason OA is increasing in Springer Nature’s hybrid journals, delivering OA equity across all academic disciplines.
The data shows that:
In 2022 OA research published in Springer Nature’s hybrid journals by authors whose institution is part of a TA grew three times faster than OA research published in these titles by authors whose institution was not part of a TA (“author choice”) ;
The increase in number of agreements Springer Nature reached has led to OA content published in its hybrid portfolio growing by nearly 40% since 2017;
TAs are also proving instrumental in enabling authors in the humanities and social sciences (HSS) to publish OA. Over 90% of HSS OA content in its hybrid journals, is now published via a TA, having grown at a faster rate than OA HSS content not published via a TA;
This means that more authors across all disciplines are now realising the benefits of increased usage and visibilitythat comes with publishing their research gold OA and having it immediately available for all to read and use – including 6x more downloads, 1.6x more citations and 4.9x altmetric attention.
Carrie Webster, VP Open Access at Springer Nature, commented:
“Research has a pivotal role to play in addressing and understanding the challenges that face our global society. It is vital that we find better ways to enable all researchers to publish and take advantage of OA. By guaranteeing that research can be accessible, reusable and built upon, we can get it quickly into the hands of those that can tackle, and address, the most pressing issues facing our society.
“We believe TAs are the most important lever available to us to achieve this. Backed up by this recent date, their role in delivering a fast, sustainable and successful shift to OA at scale for all disciplines and locations is clear.TAs enable all researchers from the participating institution to publish OA, making it a viable option where it wasn’t before”.
The publisher’s 40+ global TAs, with recently signed national agreements in Cyprus, Denmark and Slovakia and an institutional agreement with CINVESTAV in Mexico, now support authors from more than 3,500 institutions globally. Springer Nature offers researchers the most comprehensive and broad portfolio for publication. In addition, its fully OA portfolio has the highest number of total citations of any publisher and researchers benefit from 5x more downloads than titles with other fully OA publishers. The publisher continues to progress routes to OA through new journals, books or solutions. Driving the opening up of research and the development of open science remains Springer Nature’s primary focus in serving the research community. More on its commitment to OA and research can be found here.
Footnotes
Data has been analysed from 2017-2022 across all Springer Nature TA’s live during this period. Growth in OA refers to that across the Springer portfolio in these agreements which includes all Springer, Adis, Palgrave and academic journals on Nature.com
HSS OA TA uptake increased from 10% in 2017 to 30% in 2022/ STEM grown from 3% uptake in 2017 to 11% uptake in 2022
Compared to 2021
HSS OA content via TA has grown 20% since 2017, compared to 5% growth in OA HSS content not published via TA
Includes both National, Sub National and institutional agreements, alongside its Nature TA’s
The Global South is facing a host of critical issues and important opportunities, and African leaders, the World Bank, and the United Nations have identified STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education and accompanying research as a priority for the region. To help foster convergence, initiate action, and provide resources for scientists, policy researchers, humanists, engineers, and STEM educators around the globe, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and De Gruyter are launching The Integrated Global STEM Publishing and Education Initiative.
The initiative, consisting of a new journal, a book series and virtual and in-person educational events, will provide a platform for STEM in the northern and southern hemispheres, initiating action and providing resources for scientists, policy researchers, engineers, and STEM educators worldwide.
The Integrated Global STEM Initiative is open to contributors from academic and corporate institutions worldwide, bringing together critical and timely research with local scientific approaches. The purpose of this project is to generate solutions and innovations that tackle urgent global issues across a range of life-supporting fields.
The activities and publications of the initiative will consider the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Topics include basic infrastructure, engineering, environment, food production, green chemistry, health, manufacturing visibility and accessibility, smart technology, sustainable development and energy.
The initiative will be led by Professor Robert Krueger, Director of WPI’s Institute of Science and Technology for Development (InSTeD), and Head of the Social Science and Policy Studies Department and Wole Soboyejo, Senior Vice President and Provost WPI. Cynthia Allegrezza, of WPI’s Social Science and Policy Studies Department, will serve as managing editor.
“We are thrilled to launch The Integrated Global STEM Publishing and Education Initiative in collaboration with Worcester Polytechnic Institute,” said Daniel Tiemann, Vice President, STM at De Gruyter. “The dissemination of knowledge and innovation is critical to addressing the pressing challenges of our time in both the northern and southern hemispheres. We are proud to be joining forces with a highly respected partner like WPI to create a platform that promotes peer-to-peer scientific exchange and collaboration and provides knowledge resources to address these pressing global issues.”
“We’re excited to work with De Gruyter on a series that we believe will foster greater global knowledge, perspective, and action and will help support deeper understanding that science, policy, culture, and education exist globally,” said Robert Krueger. “STEM has the power and potential to create better life experiences for people everywhere through sustainability, economy, innovation, education and learning, and self-sufficiency.”
Reflecting the crucial role for open access in making relevant research available to readers outside of academia, Technology and Sustainable Development focuses on many of the practical challenges facing our governments and societies today.
The potential of technology to both solve and exacerbate pressing global issues, including gender inequality, the climate crisis, mistreatment of minorities, and the unequal distribution of power, is addressed by a range of experts in the book edited by Henrik Skaug Sætra.
The book explores the implications of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, social media and big data, as well as considering the need for greater social and political control of such developments.
James Watson, Open Access Books Lead at Taylor & Francis, said: “Our 1,500th OA book, which has human-centered science at its heart, demonstrates why open access publishing is so important. At a time of unprecedented technological change, Technology and Sustainable Development is a vital resource not just for researchers with access to university libraries but also for policymakers, politicians and all those tackling the social, economic and environmental challenges faced by our societies”.
Taylor & Francis marks 10 years of open access book publishing in 2023. With over 1,500 fully OA titles in its portfolio, combined with thousands of individual open chapters, Taylor & Francis is one of the leading open access book publishers. Its OA books program enables authors and their funders to publish open access single- or co-authored books, edited collections and individual chapters. Upon publication, OA content is made available in digital format to read and download freely under a Creative Commons license.
Ex Ordo, (www.exordo.com) the scholarly conference workflow experts, are thrilled to announce an investment of more than $3 million, coming from a committed group of investors, including prominent figures within the scholarly communications industry. The funding will be utilised to further develop Ex Ordo’s powerful scholarly events platform, build out flexible integrations and expand customer-facing teams, enabling enhanced support for scholarly societies and their events programmes.
The investors participating in this funding round comprise the company’s initial group of angel investors, Enterprise Ireland (the government agency responsible for helping Irish companies to scale internationally), as well as several leading figures within the scholarly communications industry, including Paul Peters (former CEO of Hindawi), Ahmed Hindawi and Nagwa Abdelmottaleb (co-founders of Hindawi), Sven Fund (MD of Reviewer Credits), and James Douglas (MD of Morgan Healey).
“We are delighted to receive this significant investment, which validates the value and opportunity for our scholarly conference platform,” said Paul Killoran, founder and CEO of Ex Ordo. “I’ve always believed that scholarly events are the true social network of academia. When we bring people together, whether that’s in person or online, we unlock the potential for knowledge. To accelerate knowledge, we need to make it easier for these communities to meet, and Ex Ordo can make this a reality by ensuring that content and event logistics are seamless for organisers and attendees. With this funding, we will be able to accelerate the development of our platform’s capabilities, including the development of a powerful open API, as well as expanding our customer-facing teams in North America, to partner with some of the most prestigious societies on the planet.”
“This is a major milestone for us on our journey towards scaling our vision,” he continued. “Innovation requires investment, and we have been deliberate in our funding strategy to involve the scholarly industry and its leaders. Over the coming years, we will continue to develop our product and our people with investment from other industry pioneers who also share our vision.” To further enhance their investment potential, such a company can allocate more resources to research opportunities such as the $bonk airdrop. This dedicated effort will allow them to uncover valuable insights and make informed decisions.
Ex Ordo board chair and investor Paul Peters commented: “While scholarly event organisers have been faced with very significant challenges over the past few years, there have also been some exciting new opportunities for societies to streamline their workflows and deliver increased value to their members. Through my interactions with the Ex Ordo team over the past year, I have seen first hand that they have the tools, talent, and values that societies are looking for in a partner. So, I couldn’t be more excited to come on board as an investor and help them deliver on the important mission they have set out for themselves.”
Enterprise Ireland CEO Leo Clancy said: “Ex Ordo is an innovative, ambitious company that Enterprise Ireland is proud to back. It is creating a world-renowned brand in its specific area of focus, and has a clear growth path for the coming years. This growth will support the creation of high-quality, rewarding careers in the West of Ireland, and Enterprise Ireland looks forward to being with Ex Ordo on this journey.”
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (LSE: BMY), the leading independent publisher, today announces audited results for the year ended 28 February 2023.
Commenting on the results, Nigel Newton, Chief Executive, said:
“We are delighted to have achieved these record results with sales up 15% to £264.1 million and profit up 16% to £31.1 million. Compared to two years ago, sales are up 43% and profits up 62%. Our growth outperformed the industry which was up 4%1. These results demonstrate the strength of our strategy to publish for both the consumer and the academic markets, unusual in our industry, and to grow digital revenues while expanding globally.
In challenging economic times, readers are turning to books as affordable as they cut back on more expensive forms of diversion.
Our long-term strategy to invest in digital content, which has delivered strong growth and cash, which enables future strategic investment in both our academic and consumer markets and potential acquisitions – the flywheel of Bloomsbury.
Bloomsbury Digital Resources (“BDR”) continues to deliver high margin, quality, repeatable revenues, with sales growth of 41% driven by organic and acquired assets. This drove the Non-Consumer division’s revenue growth of 19% and a 43% increase in profit before tax and highlighted items2 to £13.1 million. Resilient demand for our books saw the Consumer division revenue grow by 12%, achieving a 2% increase in profit before tax and highlighted items2 to £18.1 million.
We have signed a further four book contract with Sarah J. Maas on top of the three books already under contract, as announced in March. Also, in April, HBO Max announced a new Harry Potter television series, over a decade, with each season dedicated to one of the seven books. A Bollywood streaming version of William Dalrymple’s The Anarchy is being planned and TheThree-Body Problem, the bestselling trilogy by Cixin Liu, is in production at Netflix.
In recognition of our strong performance and in line with our progressive dividend policy, the Board proposes a 10% increase in our final dividend to 10.34 pence per share.
Trading for 2023/24 has started in line with the Board’s expectations and the Board is confident in its ability to achieve continued long-term success. Bloomsbury plans to invest in further acquisitions and organic growth.”
Note
The Board considers current consensus market expectation for the year ending 29 February 2024 to be revenue of £272.1 million and profit before taxation and highlighted items of £32.2 million.
Financial Highlights
2022/23
2021/22
2020/21
Growth 2022/23 vs 2021/22
Growth 2022/23 vs 2020/21
Revenue
£264.1m
£230.1m
£185.1m
15%
43%
Organic revenue3
£231.6m
£212.7m
£185.1m
9%
25%
Profit before taxation and highlighted items2
£31.1m
£26.7m
£19.2m
16%
62%
Profit before taxation
£25.4m
£22.2m
£17.3m
15%
46%
Adjusted diluted earnings per share
30.56p
25.94p
18.68p
18%
64%
Diluted earnings per share
24.54p
20.33p
16.71p
21%
47%
Net cash
£51.5m
£41.2m
£54.5m
25%
(5)%
Final dividend per share
10.34p
9.40p
7.58p
10%
36%
Operational Highlights
Non-Consumer Division
· Non-Consumer revenue growth of 19% to £97.4 million (2021/22: £81.9 million). Organic revenue growth was 3%
· Non-Consumer profit before taxation and highlighted items2 increased by 43% to £13.1 million (2021/22: £9.1 million)
· Academic & Professional revenue growth of 28% to £75.7 million (2021/22: £59.3 million) and profit before taxation and highlighted items2 up 37% to £12.4 million (2021/22: £9.1 million), with prior year acquisitions contributing £21.5 million revenue (2021/22: £8.4 million)
· Bloomsbury Digital Resources (“BDR”) revenue growth of 41% to £26.2 million (2021/22: £18.6 million) driven by strong demand for existing BDR products and growth from the acquisition of ABC-CLIO. Organic revenue growth was 18%
· New BDR target is to achieve further 40% organic revenue growth over the five years to 2027/28, to reach turnover of approximately £37 million
Consumer Division
· Consumer revenue growth of 12% to £166.7 million (2021/22: £148.2 million). Organic revenue growth was 12%, with the prior year acquisition contributing £11.0 million revenue (2021/22: £9.0 million) to Adult Trade
· Consumer profit before taxation and highlighted items2 up 2% to £18.1 million (2020/21: £17.8 million)
· Adult Trade revenue up 5% to £57.8 million (2021/22: £55.2 million) and profit before taxation and highlighted items2 of £1.0 million (2021/22: £2.0 million)
· Children’s Trade revenue growth of 17% to £108.9 million (2021/22: £93.0 million) and profit before taxation and highlighted items2 up 9% to £17.2 million (2021/22: £15.8 million)
· Sales growth of Sarah J. Maas’ titles of 51%; Harry Potter sales were strong 26 years after it was first published
Notes
1 Publishers Association: 2022 UK market up 4% year-on-year.
2 Highlighted items comprise amortisation of acquired intangible assets and legal and other professional costs relating to ongoing and completed acquisitions and restructuring costs.
3 Organic revenue for the year is defined as total revenue less revenue attributable to the acquisitions of Head of Zeus (“HoZ”), Red Globe Press (“RGP”) and ABC-CLIO LLC (“ABC-CLIO”), completed during 2021/22.
The session will be held on 6 July from 19:00-21:00 (Beijing time) and focus on the latest in open science, open research, open data, OSTP and Europe’s cOAlition S, and look ahead to future initiatives and prospects of open access (OA) across China.
The new ALPSP training programme has been adapted for the Chinese market following a collaboration with Chinese University Journals Society (CUJS) and the Charlesworth Group. The two-hour session will take place via Zoom with plenty of time for live questions and answers at the end.
To start, the ALPSP presentation will interweave open science, open data and OA and provide participants with an overview of the major policies in place in the US and Europe. It will examine what these mean for publishing and will include coverage of the different types of OA and relevant policies including the US OSTP and Europe’s cOAlition S.
Head of Sales in China at Charlesworth, Scarlett Hao will present case studies of its OA deals with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Tsinghua University. She will briefly introduce the emergence and development of China’s OA, Chinese researchers’ awareness of OA and the publication of relevant papers, the OA model of Chinese journals, China’s open data and platforms, and the international cooperation of OA.
Professor Tieming Zhang, Chair at CUJS will briefly introduce the emergence and development of China’s OA, Chinese researchers’ awareness of OA and the publication of OA papers, the OA model of Chinese journals, China’s open data and platforms, and the international cooperation of OA, etc. The future development of OA will also be discussed.
Wayne Sime, Chief Executive of ALPSP, commented: “Following a joint collaboration with CUJS and Charlesworth, who are experts in the region, we are excited to be launching this new initiative to adapt our popular and well-established training programme for the Chinese audience.”
Taylor & Francis has announced the completion of an extensive testing and development program to ensure its eBooks website (TaylorFrancis.com) is fully inclusive. The international research publisher’s platform has achieved the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) recommendations at a high level (AA), confirming it meets the requirements of users with a disability.
Taylor & Francis eBooks is a single-destination platform for over 125,000 books in science, technology, engineering, medical, humanities and social sciences. The focus of the latest development program was to make sure this key knowledge hub is accessible to researchers and readers regardless of any impairments.
Updates and testing were carried out with a range of website visitors in mind, including those with vision, hearing and mobility disabilities. Taylor & Francis’ team of developers and accessibility experts tested the site and its code according to the rigorous standards set out in the World Wide Web Consortium’s WCAG criteria; from keyboard navigation and page titles to use of color and link text.
Stacy Scott, Accessibility Officer at Taylor & Francis, said: “We’re delighted the eBooks site has achieved WCAG 2.1, the gold standard of accessibility requirements. This is the result of a collaborative effort by teams across Taylor & Francis, each with the same goal: inclusion for all. Reaching this milestone also means that libraries, who are often legally required meet their users’ accessibility needs, can confidently include Taylor & Francis eBooks in their holdings”.
Scott added: “Just because our eBooks platform now meets the international guidelines, that doesn’t mean that our accessibility team stops their work. We will be performing regular tests to check the site continues to fully serve all its users and will also ensure accessibility is embedded into the design of new functionality as the platform develops”.
Following an extensive strategic review of its business, Thomas Telford Limited (TTL), the commercial arm of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) has today sold the majority of TTL’s book catalogue (excluding the NEC Guides) and all journal titles and related publishing assets to Emerald Publishing Limited. The sale comprises 35 peer-reviewed journals, over 1,500 eBooks and 36,000 research articles dating back to 1836.
The ICE has also granted Emerald Publishing a licence to the ICE Publishing brand and ICE Name in respect of those titles and assets.
Emerald Publishing and the ICE will now embark on a mutually beneficial collaboration to ensure the long-term success of the publications.
Andrea Naylor, Managing Director, TTL said:
“I am delighted that the ICE Publishing brand, known and trusted by researchers and practitioners worldwide, will now continue under the stewardship of Emerald Publishing. Our purpose is to improve lives by ensuring the world has the engineering capacity and infrastructure systems it needs to allow people and the planet to thrive. In selecting Emerald Publishing, we are confident that we have chosen a partner who understands and shares our values. We are excited to work with them to ensure that ICE Publishing continues to offer leading publications in the fields of civil and environmental engineering and materials science.”
Vicky Williams, CEO, Emerald Publishing said:
“As an award-winning, independent publisher of mission-driven research, Emerald Publishing is delighted to have been selected by the ICE to take forward its prestigious publishing programme. The respective purpose and missions of the ICE and Emerald Publishing are strongly aligned, and we both understand the pressing need for research that contributes to progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Through close and ongoing collaboration with ICE we will expand the publication of new research that focuses on topics including, for example, decarbonisation, water, sanitation, clean affordable energy, harnessing data and technology for procurement, improving technical standards, and enhancing knowledge, insight and ethical understanding for researchers and practising engineers.”
From 1 January 2024, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)’s new open access policy will apply to monographs, book chapters and edited collections.
The open access policy applied since April 2022 for peer-reviewed research articles acknowledging UKRI funding.
The policy aims to ensure that findings from research UKRI funds with public money can be accessed and built on by the research and innovation community and wider society.
New guidance
UKRI has published the following information to support UKRI-funded authors and research organisations to follow the new policy:
updates to frequently asked questions about the policy, including the use of UKRI open access funding for transformative journals.
Open access is less established for books and while open access is preferred there may be instances when open access publication is not feasible. Please refer to the guidance about when and how to apply one of the defined exemptions.
Funding for long-form publications
In autumn 2023, UKRI will open applications for a dedicated £3.5 million fund to support open access costs for monographs, book chapters and edited collections within scope of our policy.
The fund will support a range of open access models, including ‘diamond’ open access models and processing charges.
UKRI-funded researchers will be able to apply to UKRI via their research organisation for funding.
A two-stage process will ensure authors and their research organisations have confirmation that their outputs are in scope of the UKRI fund as they proceed with publishing agreements.
UKRI will then release funds upon notification of publication.
Changes for transformative journals
UKRI open access funds can currently be used for research article publication costs in hybrid journals (those that publish closed and open access articles) that have Jisc-approved transformative journal status.
Transformative journals were intended as a temporary measure to support journals to transition to full open access.
As detailed in our frequently asked questions, in line with other cOAlition S research funders, it will not be possible to use UKRI open access funds for publication in transformative journals after 31 December 2024.
This decision, based on the recommendation of the UK sector through Jisc’s strategic groups, aims to support the transition to full open access and ensures consistency with other funders.
Webinar for research organisations
To support researchers and organisations to be prepared for the start of the policy in January we will engage our research communities and stakeholders, including through activities we are supporting Jisc to undertake, throughout 2023.
As part of this we will host a webinar on 15 June about the new long-form policy for staff at UKRI-funded research organisations who support researchers with open access.
It has been just over a year since the UKRI open access policy started for research articles and you can read more below about our current activity and how you can get involved.
We are working with MoreBrains Cooperative to develop a roadmap for improvements to the open access research information landscape.
The goal is to set out pragmatic and realistic steps to open access policy compatibility that can guide UKRI’s work and that of repositories, publishers, and service providers.
We want to ensure the roadmap is co-designed with research and publishing sectors and over the coming months will be conducting a series of workshops and roundtable discussions.
We will contact key stakeholder groups soon, but if you are interested in participating you can contact MoreBrains Cooperative at info@morebrains.coop
Monitoring and evaluation framework
We are working with Research Consulting to identify a series of evaluation questions to assess the effectiveness of the policy, approaches to answer these, as well as their feasibility and expected resource intensity.
Research Consulting have published a blog on some of the findings so far, including a shortlist of evaluation questions and key recommendations.
The outcomes of the project will be published in the summer and will inform the development of our final monitoring and evaluation framework.
Spread the word
Whether you are a researcher or work in another part of a UKRI-funded research organisation, we would appreciate it if you used this information to raise awareness of the new long-form policy.
Today the Council has adopted conclusions on the ‘high quality, transparent, open, trustworthy and equitable scholarly publishing’, in which it calls for immediate and unrestricted open access in publishing research involving public funds.
The hazards of scholarly publishing
If we really believe in open science, we need to make sure that researchers can make their findings available and re-usable and that high-quality scientific articles are openly accessible to anyone that needs to read them. This should be particularly the case for research that benefits from public funding: what has been paid by all should be accessible to all.Mats Persson, Swedish Minister for Education, Ministry of Education and Research
Scientific articles and other forms of scholarly publishing continue to be the primary means of disseminating research results and scientific findings. However, far from every article is available to other researchers or other interested readers. The costs of paywalls to access and publish articles are becoming unsustainable and the publication channels for researchers are frequently in the hands of private companies, which often control the intellectual property of the articles. The peer review of articles is essential to assure the quality control of the articles, but this process comes with challenges such as increased numbers of submissions and reviewers’ fatigue. There is also an issue with predatory and questionable publishing practices.
In its conclusions, the Council calls on the Commission and the member states to support policies towards a scholarly publishing model that is not-for-profit, open access and multi-format, with no costs for authors or readers. Some Member States have introduced secondary publication rights into their national copyright legislation, enabling open access to scholarly publications which involve public funds. The Council encourages national open access policies and guidelines to make scholarly publications immediately openly accessible under open licences. The conclusions acknowledge positive developments in terms of monitoring progress, like within the framework of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), and suggest including open science monitoring in the European Research Area monitoring mechanism. The Council conclusions also encourage Member States to support the pilot programme Open Research Europe (to create a large-scale open access research publishing service), the use of open-source software and standards, to recognise and reward peer review activities in the assessment of researchers as well as to support the training of researchers on peer-review skills and on intellectual property rights.
Aries Systems Corporation, a leading technology workflow solutions provider for the scholarly publishing community, and Prophy, a scientific knowledge management provider, are pleased to announce their partnership to further enhance Reviewer search and invitation for scholarly publishers.
With a finite number and high demand, finding qualified Reviewers with diverse backgrounds is a daunting task for journal Editors and editorial staff. Many journals have their own Reviewer database to call on, however their needs often outweigh the number of Reviewers readily available and locating new researchers for their pool can be challenging. Aries Systems and Prophy have partnered together to help alleviate this bottleneck by offering publishers the ability to integrate Prophy’s Referee Finder, a Reviewer searching platform and matching tool, with Aries’ Editorial Manager® (EM), the leading manuscript submission and peer review tracking system.
Publishers using EM will be provided with recommendations for Reviewer candidates through Prophy’s extensive database of over 60 million researchers, drawn from a collection of over 150 million articles. Prophy’s Referee Finder tool automatically creates a Reviewer profile and ranks each Reviewer according to their semantic similarities to a reviewed manuscript or proposal. This integration allows Editors to quickly surface and connect with the most relevant and available Reviewers. Moreover, it enables Editors to diversify their Reviewer pool and identify early career researchers. Once a Reviewer is selected, automated invitations can be sent directly from EM without any disruptions to workflows.
Aries remains dedicated to connecting its customers with enabling technology focused on enhancing the user workflow and experience. Prophy’s Referee Finder tool is one of several Reviewer search tools available within Aries’ ecosystem of workflow innovations.
“Aries is thrilled to partner with Prophy to effortlessly connect Editors to qualified referees leveraging semantic technologies, artificial intelligence, and natural language processing,“ stated Aries Director of Business Development, Pierre Montagano. “This partnership and offering further demonstrates Aries’ commitment to expand our ecosystem of workflow tools to best meet the needs of our user community.”
“As the CEO of Prophy, I’m incredibly excited about our collaboration,” said Professor Alexey Boyarsky. “By integrating our tools into the editors’ workflow, we can ensure that all journals across the sciences benefit from our platform. We look forward to a strong partnership with Aries and are eager to continue bringing our tools to those who need them.”
