The American Chemical Society (ACS) has named James Milne, Ph.D., president of the ACS Publications Division. He has served as acting president since September 2019, when Brian Crawford, Ph.D., retired.

Based in Oxford, U.K., Milne joined ACS in 2016. In his role as president, he will oversee the publication of the Society’s more than 60 peer-reviewed journals, a suite of eBooks, as well as the industry-leading weekly news periodical, Chemical & Engineering News. He also ensures the continued offering of high-quality service to authors and readers, including rapid time to publication, cutting-edge web and mobile delivery platforms and comprehensive open access options.

“Jim’s reputation for excellence extends far beyond ACS,” says ACS Executive Director and CEO Thomas Connelly Jr., Ph.D. “He has demonstrated creativity and vision, as well as a willingness for partnership and collaboration — skills that are essential as we continue to enhance our publication offerings to meet the needs of the scientific community.”

Prior to joining ACS, Milne held leadership positions at Wiley, the Royal Society of Chemistry and Elsevier. He currently serves as the chair of the Board of the International Association of STM Publishers and as the chair and spokesperson for the Coalition for Responsible Sharing. 

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Researchers from four institutions in the Netherlands will soon benefit from unlimited open access publishing in IOP Publishing (IOPP) journals. The move is the result of a series of recently agreed ‘read and publish’ agreements.

IOPP, a pioneer in open access physics publishing, has secured the agreements with the University of Amsterdam, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), the University of Groningen and University of Twente.

The agreements enable authors from the institutions to publish open access in 42 of IOPP’s journals, with no barriers and no article publication charges (APCs) for qualified articles at the point of publication. Articles will be published under an open licence (CC-BY), which allows authors to retain copyright.

IOPP already has a number of similar agreements in place, with further contracts to be announced soon. Most recently, IOPP worked with Jisc to secure a transformative agreement for the benefit of UK universities.

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To accelerate the implementation of research data solutions, The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) has launched the ‘STM 2020 Research Data Year’ – a dedicated action plan to increase the number of journals with data policies, expand the number of journals depositing data links and grow the volume of citations to datasets.

In any field of study, the sharing of data is one of the most fundamental aspects of maintaining the integrity of research. The availability of research data plays a vital role in ensuring reproducibility and the ongoing development of Open Science. Acknowledging this, funders are increasingly developing data sharing policies for research funded by them.

The STM 2020 Research Data Year will directly support researchers by assisting publishers to: Share: accelerate the number of journals with data policies and articles with Data Availability Statements (DAS); Link: accelerate the number of journals that deposit the data links to the SCHOLIX framework for linking datasets and publications; and Cite: accelerate the citations to datasets.

A range of collaborative cross-industry activities have been initiated to share best practices and offer training material to make it quick and easy for publishers to accelerate their research data implementations. These include a dedicated website resource, regular international workshops and webinars encouraging the exchange of experiences and lessons learned, and dedicated support for implementation efforts including on-site visits.

Current participants in the program include Cambridge University Press, Elsevier, DeGruyter, Karger Publishers, Oxford University Press, Sage Publishing, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis and Wiley. Progress towards the goals of the 2020 Research Data Year will be tracked and displayed on a website dashboard which will show how publishers are steadily implementing new data policies, encouraging data sharing and making the links and citations to and from datasets and scholarly journal articles more widely available.

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Scientific, technical and medical publishers face upheaval from open access and open data, but this transition represents opportunity in online services, particularly for competitors that can develop broader discovery tools and dynamic content capabilities to win users’ loyalty—this according to the most recent report from Simba Information, a leader in media and publishing intelligence.

The report STM Online Services 2019-2023focuses on the databases that offer online content or abstracting and indexing and are sold to academic, government and commercial customers. It found that between 2016 and 2018, online services revenue grew at a compound annual rate of 5.1% after elimination of trade between competitors — faster than STM journals or books. Growth was boosted somewhat by currency exchange in the period. Simba estimates the currency impact at roughly 1% over the two years.

Many of the products and services are already considered “must have” information sold in multi-year, multi-million-dollar bundles. As the corpus of data made open by research funder mandates grows, the value publishers provide will shift back toward discovery and integration.

The larger players will ultimately gain the most from this new opportunity. They have largely turned their attention to author and researcher engagement—a key point of differentiation and competition between publishers in the STM online services market.

“We see it when sophisticated reference management tools add social networking to build communities akin to those directed at the general public,” said Dan Strempel, senior analyst, professional publishing at Simba Information. “Researchers find and share articles online. Reference management tools facilitate the sharing, but also bind the customer to a suite of services the way Apple gets its products to work together better to hold customers in its ecosystem.”

Reference management tools like Mendeley and ReadCube are central to these interactions. Publishers are using these tools to begin shaping the future at the desktops of their customers. Legacy services are also adding new features in order to tie researchers more closely to the platform.

STM Online Services 2019-2023 provides detailed market information for STM online services, segmented by: sci-tech standards, patents and online content, drug databases, clinical reference, training and certification, reference management and analytical tools, sci-tech abstracting and indexing, medical abstracting and indexing. It analyzes trends impacting the industry and forecasts market growth to 2023. The report includes an in-depth review of 10 leading scientific and technical publishers, including Wolters Kluwer, Clarivate Analytics, Elsevier, IHS Markit, American Chemical Society, IBM Watson Health and others.

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Emerald Publishing has announced that it is to partner with Oxford Analytica, the pioneer of geopolitical risk analysis, to deliver analysis of events at the nexus of politics, economics, business and society to the academic community.

Expert Briefings are impartial analyses of macro-economic and geopolitical events, prepared by a global network of over 1,500 experts, including former policymakers, regulators and industry leaders, together with experienced analysts based in Oxford, UK. The briefings offer a unique understanding of the geopolitical and macroeconomic landscape, to inform decisions and reaction.

Harriet Bell, Emerald’s Marketing Director said of this newly launched service, available through Emerald Insight, “Our aim is to give the academic community the same information that global political, industry and sector leaders use. Expert Briefings provide up-to-the-minute, unique and valuable insights to inform thinking and influence research. We are delighted to have exclusive rights to this service in the academic community, underlining our commitment to helping researchers have a positive impact on the world, and tackle some of the world’s biggest issues, aligned to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.”

Emerald’s partnership with Oxford Analytica not only make the daily briefings available to the academic community, but also a rich archive of over 20,000 briefings dating back to 2015. This record allows students and researchers to put recent and emerging events in historical context.

David K. Young, CEO of Oxford Analytica, said: “With global interconnections and geopolitical threats and opportunities ever on the rise, students of business and policy-oriented courses as well as international relations need to develop a good understanding of key geopolitical issues. Our partnership with Emerald Publishing is therefore tremendously exciting, and we are delighted to have found a partner with such a strong commitment to providing content that is relevant and actionable, two of the central tenets of the Oxford Analytica Daily Brief.”

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The Institute of Physics (IOP) and IOP Publishing (IOPP) are pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Qi-Kun Xue as chief scientific advisor for China. In the newly created role, Professor Xue will support the IOP and IOPP as they continue to strengthen relationships with the scientific community in China. He will advise on strategic engagement with key decision makers in government and the scientific community and provide expert insight into political and institutional processes.

He will also lead a new Science Advisory Board made up of distinguished academic and industry professionals, which has been formed by the organisations to provide guidance on developments in research and academic publishing throughout China.

Professor Xue is currently Vice President of Tsinghua University, Beijing and President of Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences (BAQIS). He is also a Vice-President of the Chinese Physical Society.

He received his BSc from Shan-Dong University in 1984 and his PhD in condensed matter physics from the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOPCAS) in 1994.

His academic career began as a Research Associate at the Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Japan. He progressed to Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at North Carolina State University in 1996. Xue received his professorship from IOPCAS in 1999 and moved to the Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, as a Distinguished Professor, in 2005.

In 2016, he was the first recipient of the Physical Science Award of the new Future Science Prize – China’s first non-governmental science award – for his groundbreaking discoveries of novel quantum phenomena using molecular beam epitaxy, including quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE) and monolayer FeSe superconductivity.

Commenting on his appointment, Professor Xue, said: “Thanks to substantial investment, and the hard work and dedicated focus of its research community, China is at the forefront of science globally. I am very proud to be helping the Institute of Physics and IOP Publishing in their efforts to forge closer working relationships with the scientific community in China.”

Professor Paul Hardaker, Chief Executive Officer at the Institute of Physics, said: “We are honoured that Professor Xue has agreed to become our first chief scientific advisor for China. It’s extremely important for us to strengthen and develop our links with China’s scientific community, to enable us to learn from one another and foster greater collaboration. I’m looking forward to working closely with Professor Xue and the Advisory Board in the coming years to achieve this.”

Antonia Seymour, Director of Publishing at IOP Publishing, said: “At IOP Publishing we’re very fortunate to have published some of the most significant research from scientists in China, many of whom are considered world leaders in their fields. Alongside our colleagues at IOP, we feel very privileged to have access to the advice and guidance of Professor Xue as we work to build our links with the Chinese research community.”

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CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas), the Spanish Research Council and IntechOpen are working together to encourage Open Access publishing in Spain. In a new agreement, CSIC affiliated academics and research centres will benefit from heavily discounted publication fees and IntechOpen’s vast experience in Open Access book publishing.

From January 2020, the Open Access book publishing fee charged to CSIC researchers across all (STEM & HSS) research output will be reduced by 25%, and 50% of the remaining charges will be paid by a CSIC central Open Access fund managed by URICI, while funds last. Authors will pay the remaining 50% of the fee themselves.

CSIC supports the pursuit of scientific research, with more than 11,000 researchers at its 120 member institutes. It is the largest public institution in Spain dedicated to research and one of the most renowned of the European Research Area. It sits within the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through the General Secretariat of Scientific Policy Coordination.

IntechOpen is a leading Open Access book publisher, with a community of over 118,000 authors and academic editors and more than 4,500 Open Access books published since 2004. All books are submitted to relevant abstracting and indexing services including Web of Science, Book Citation Index, Crossref, Google Scholar, WorldCat, BASE, EBSCO, Open AIRE, CNKI Scholar, RePEc, ExLibris SFX.

Dr Anke Beck, CEO of IntechOpen says: “We believe that scientific progress is fuelled by collaboration and are extremely proud to enter an agreement with CSIC to support its researchers in Open Access publishing. We look forward to seeing more high-quality publications from our Spanish research colleagues.”

Agnès Ponsati [Director of the Unit of Information Resources for Research] from CSIC said: “The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) through its Library Network is committed to open access as one of the ways to achieve a new way of doing science and disseminate: open science. We are betting on offering our community of researchers, which is diverse and multidisciplinary different options so that they can publish their results in open access, be they articles, books or book chapters. IntechOpen has been one of the options that we incorporate into our Open Access Support Program as of January 2020.”

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Springer Nature, the publisher of science magazines Nature and Scientific American, is reviving plans for a stock market listing, two years after a first attempt fell through, people close to the matter said.

Its owners, buyout group BC Partners and publisher Holtzbrinck, are working with a new bank consortium led by Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and Morgan Stanley (MS.N) on the deal, which may value the company at 7-8 billion euros ($7.8-8.9 billion), including debt, they added.

BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA) and Citi (C.N) are among those helping as so-called bookrunners with the initial public offering, which could take place as early as May or June, they added.

BC Partners, Holtzbrinck and the banks declined to comment or were not immediately available for comment.

Springer Nature had cancelled a planned stock market listing in 2018, citing weak demand. At the time, investors had baulked at the high price expectations of the sellers and the high debt of Springer Nature.

“Leverage has come down significantly, making it a much easier sell now,” one of the people said.

Springer Nature was formed in 2015 through the merger of Holtzbrinck’s Macmillan Science and Education unit with BC Partners’ Springer business, which publishes scientific, technical and medical books and journals.

The tie-up was designed to make it easier to compete with the likes of RELX (REL.L) and Informa (INF.L) as publishers increasingly shift to digital content and readers use smartphones and tablets to access information.

Springer Nature, which says it is the largest English language academic book publisher with 13,000 new books every year, reported adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of 551 million euros on revenues of 1.64 billion euros in 2017.

In 2018, Springer Nature, which employs 13,000 staff in 50 countries, posted sales of 1.66 billion euros.

Springer Nature is a separate company from German publisher Axel Springer (SPRGn.DE).

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-springer-nature-ipo/publisher-springer-nature-revives-ipo-plans-new-bank-consortium-sources-idUSKBN1ZF1WV

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Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, has completed its acquisition of Innovative, a leading provider of integrated library systems for public, academic, and specialist libraries. Innovative is now a business unit within Ex Libris.

“This is an important day for Ex Libris and Innovative,” said Bar Veinstein, president of Ex Libris. “We are bringing together Innovative’s industry expertise with Ex Libris cloud technology and services to help our customers meet new challenges in the library industry.”

Ex Libris will continue to support and develop the solutions that Innovative’s customers have relied on for many years. At the same time, Ex Libris cloud technology will power the development of a cloud-based Polaris SaaS solution for public libraries.

 “Uniting the strengths of Ex Libris and Innovative will provide even more opportunities and choice for libraries. The combined organization will have the vision and resources to increase investment in state-of-the-art services and accelerate the development of library solutions, including resource sharing and interlibrary loan, library management, and discovery services,” added Shaheen Javadizadeh, Innovative CEO.

Guggenheim Securities, LLC served as exclusive financial advisor to ProQuest and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP served as legal counsel to ProQuest for the transaction. Evercore Partners served as exclusive financial advisor to Innovative and Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal counsel to Innovative.

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The Publications Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) announces the launch of its newest open access journal, JACS Au. The journal (pronounced “JACS Gold”) represents a bold new step toward open science for the global chemistry community.

The fully open access journal will allow for the rapid dissemination of cutting-edge, high-impact research across the breadth of chemistry and all related areas intersecting with chemistry. JACS Au will be complementary to the Journal of the American Chemical Society(JACS), matching the exceptional editorial and publishing standards of this, the world’s most-cited chemistry publication. JACS Au will have a fully independent editorial team to identify the most-exciting, impactful and novel science from authors who require or desire to publish in a fully open access journal.

“We are beginning the decade with a groundbreaking commitment to open access and open science,” says James Milne, Ph.D., acting president, ACS Publications Division. “JACS Au will strengthen the Society’s position as the science publisher delivering the most-trusted, most-cited and most-read journals in the field, while also supporting the research community seeking to publish their work in a fully open access journal.”

Scholarly publishing has been moving toward open access for many years. Launching JACS Au is another example of ACS being at the forefront of this exciting era, and provides an opportunity for the Society to support the scientists and researchers who are required by Europe’s Plan S to publish only in completely open access journals. ACS offers these scientists many options to publish their research for the appropriate audiences, and JACS Au represents the latest in our work to advance open science.

In 2015, ACS established ACS Central Science, the Society’s first completely open access journal, followed by ACS Omega in 2016. Through 2019, ACS Publications signed a significant number of transformative “read and publish” agreements, through which thousands of articles are now being made open access across the entire ACS portfolio of world-class international journals.
 
JACS Au will open for submissions in the summer of 2020. Ahead of this, a global and diverse editorial team will be appointed. Further information on the editorial team and other details concerning the journal will follow.

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