Wiley recently announced the acquisition of leading open access publisher Hindawi. But what are the implications for open research, and how does the research community benefit? We talk to Liz Ferguson, Vice President of Open Research here at Wiley.

Firstly, can you tell us a bit about the background behind the acquisition?

Absolutely – we already had a great partnership with Hindawi which has been in place since 2017, allowing us to expand our open access publishing program and learn from their ethos and expertise.

So, for Wiley, the acquisition was a completely logical move. Both Wiley and Hindawi are committed to open research and accelerating growth in scientific discovery and innovation. It’s a great alignment and together, we’re looking forward to being able to serve the needs of the research community in new and exciting ways.

What does this mean for open access at Wiley?

Simply, together, we can do more. Wiley has long been committed to expanding our open access offerings, as demonstrated by our transitional agreements with Projekt DEAL in Germany and Jisc in the UK, among others.

Hindawi is a leader and innovator in open access, and this acquisition should be a strong signal that we firmly believe in the future of open access publishing. Working together, we will be able to drive forward the open research agenda, providing authors with a great publishing experience and maximizing research impact.

The Hindawi acquisition adds more than 200 journals to our gold open access portfolio, effectively doubling it and offering researchers more choice than ever before.

Hindawi has significant reach in China; with Asia an important market for Wiley, how valuable will this prove to be?

China plays a huge role in the world of research and is unquestionably the global leader in a number of disciplines. Wiley has a great team in China and has long recognized the importance and strength of Chinese research. We’ll continue to build partnerships and collaborations with Chinese research institutions and government stakeholders to offer value and choice for our Chinese authors.

Hindawi knows and understands this market well, identifying early on how important it was to serve the needs of Chinese researchers and launching journals that reflect the strengths of the Chinese research community. It’s this knowledge and expertise which has driven their success in China and working together with them puts us in a really strong position to enhance our offerings and publishing experience in the world’s fastest growing market.

Can you tell us about any further opportunities arising from the acquisition?

Joint efforts are always better than a singular effort, and this acquisition provides fantastic opportunities for both Wiley and Hindawi to learn from each other.

To ensure continuity of experience for authors, Hindawi journals will continue to be hosted on Hindawi’s platform, under their brand, and Wiley open access titles will remain under the Wiley brand, on Wiley platforms. Hindawi’s Phenom platform was specifically created for gold open access journals, while of course Wiley platforms cater to hybrid and subscription journals as well.

We’re committed to keeping the Phenom platform open source and investing in the platform, allowing us to expand the options we can offer to our publishing partners. We will of course continue to innovate and invest in our infrastructure and workflows to ensure the best publishing experience possible.

Wiley and Hindawi have both built successful open access publishing programs, but in different ways, so coming together allows us to really build on these successes and deliver growth and innovation through joint efforts.

We anticipate making the most of opportunities to bring Wiley and Hindawi colleagues together to engage and learn from each other. For instance, we know that Hindawi has a large and knowledgeable research integrity team, and we look forward to collaborating with them in ensuring the highest quality scientific publications and public trust in scientific research. The Hindawi team are also expert at identifying key topics of interest to the community and working with the research community directly to organise special issues around these; I think there’s a good opportunity for us to learn from them there, too.

Thanks, Liz! And to finish up, what does the acquisition tell us about the future of open research at Wiley?

Our partnership with Hindawi, and now the acquisition, really highlights our continuing dedication to open access and the wider open research movement.

All trends point to an increased role for gold open access, as well as open data practices, transparent peer review, and preprints. As we celebrate the tenth year of our open access program, we remain committed to driving progress in open research and delivering choice, quality, and value for our research communities.

We’re very proud to continue this journey with Hindawi; it’s an exciting future.

Further reading:

• Transitional agreements: An introduction for editors
• Open research at Wiley – The last 12 months reviewed
• The benefits of online publication: speed, sharing, openness
• How can editors encourage open research practices?
• How to attract and engage Chinese reviewers
• Engaging Chinese editors for effective international outreach