News: Academic Publishing Weekly

Cambridge goes corporate, publishers welcome new leaders, and the persisting gender gap in nonfiction

Posted on March 13, 2026 in News

Partnership Roundup

Taylor & Francis announced it has renewed its contract with Cactus Communications, an AI tech and services platform supporting the research publication workflow. The contract centers on the Paperpal Preflight product, which provides tailored language support to authors. At a minimum, the solution helps avoid “desk-rejection” of poorly written manuscripts that otherwise offer solid research. “We are committed to supporting authors in preparing their manuscripts for peer review, ensuring their ideas are clearly articulated and accessible to editors and reviewers,” said Michaela Atherley, Director of Editorial Operations at Taylor & Francis, in a statement. “Paperpal Preflight is a valuable tool in this process, helping authors refine their language and improve the flow of their work, particularly for those whose first language isn’t English.”

Research Information reports that the University of Cambridge has secured its largest-ever corporate research partnership. The institution is partnering with quantum technology company IonQ to “enable researchers and early-stage companies from across the UK to make use of the enormous power of the first commercial-scale quantum computer at a UK university,” per a statement from Cambridge. The partnership includes the creation of the IonQ Quantum Innovation Center, which will house an IonQ 256-qubit quantum computer. Once it’s up and running, it will be the most powerful quantum computer in the UK.

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More Movement in AI and APCs

IOP Publishing has expanded its author publishing charge (APC) discounts to more regions. The discounts apply to the publisher’s entire portfolio and now reach 122 economies. A new three-tiered discount structure breaks down like this: 100% eligibility for authors from low-income economies, 70% for those from eligible lower-middle-income economies, and, for the first time, 30% for those from upper-middle-income economies. The discounts will automatically apply when any author listed in a manuscript byline is based in a qualifying country. Further, the company says, “When the article’s corresponding author and the majority of co-authors meet the criteria, support will be granted on request at submission, ensuring that research teams working across institutions and geographies can still benefit.”

DataSeer, an AI platform that tracks and measures open science, and data sharing in particular, is introducing a new product that illuminates the mystery of dataset sharing. In collaboration with PLOS and The Michael J. Fox Foundation, the company launched a new AI tech called Data Reuse LLM that “enables large-scale, accurate detection of data reuse across the scholarly literature.” The technology can essentially tell whether data in an article were freshly generated or reused. If reused, it identifies the source of the original dataset, a critical piece of the puzzle since this also enables impact measurement.

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Launch Week: Two New Journals and a Preprint Platform

Emerald Publishing and the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) will launch two new journals in an effort to “embed ethics, sustainability and social responsibility into business and management education.” The two journals, Journal of Responsible Management Education and Artificial Intelligence and Responsible Management, will have a global reach, as PRME is an “international network engaging more than 850 Signatory institutions across 96 countries, supported by 17 regional Chapters.” Dr. David Steingard, Head of PRME, stated, “These journals will provide the global PRME scholarly community with new opportunities to publish in high-quality, rigorous, and credible outlets that are explicitly oriented toward societal impact.” In other launch news, Wiley debuted Research Exchange Preprints, “a new platform designed to streamline the posting and discovery of early-stage research.” Research Exchange Preprints will include intelligent file uploads, AI-supported metadata extraction, and “a versioning system that allows researchers to manage updates to their work collaboratively, with dedicated DOIs assigned to each version.” Chemistry preprint server ChemRxiv has chosen the platform as its technology provider.

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S&S and Springer Nature Welcome New Appointments

Greg Greeley will succeed Jonathan Karp as CEO of Simon & Schuster. Greeley’s experience includes close to 20 years at Amazon, where he worked on its books and media business, print-on-demand program, self-publishing platform, and audiobooks and books marketplace. He recently acted as an investor and advisor to “technology and consumer companies, including venture firms such as Tapas Capital and TCV.” Karp will work with Greeley through the transition while taking on his next venture as publisher of a new imprint, Simon Six. In the academic world, Anna Troise has been named President, North America at Springer Nature. The new role will encompass “lead[ing] Springer Nature’s external presence and growth agenda for the Research business in the U.S.” and signals the publisher’s “dedication to advancing the impact of American research.” Troise comes from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), where she acted as Chief Commercial Officer.

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The Gender Gap in Nonfiction and Upcoming Books for Spring

Erin L. Cox of Publishing Perspectives covered a London Book Fair panel on the gender gap in nonfiction publishing. Highlighting research from the Women’s Prize Trust, Cox underscores that women are less likely to be shortlisted or win major nonfiction prizes, and only a little more than a quarter of nonfiction reviews in national newspapers are books by women. Further, the pay gap extends to nonfiction writing, as “women nonfiction writers are paid 36% less than male writers.” Cox covers comments by the panelists on why this gap occurs and what female nonfiction writers and the publishing world writ large can do to combat the issue. Speaking of nonfiction, the New York Times highlighted “26 Nonfiction Books We’re Excited About This Spring.” The list covers memoirs, family history, sports, literary criticism, and more (and yes, more than half of the titles are by men).

Independent Press Top 5 Bestsellers: Nonfiction
The American Booksellers Association and the Independent Publishers Caucus recently collaborated on an independent bestsellers list, which includes books from independent presses and sold in indie bookshops. Below are the top five nonfiction titles this week. Find this week’s full list of fiction and nonfiction independent bestsellers.

1. The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon (Liveright)
2. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions)
3. The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change by Rebecca Solnit (Haymarket Books)
4. The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary by Terry Tempest Williams (Grove Press)
5. On Democracy by Walt Whitman (Library of America)

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