News: Academic Publishing Weekly

Microsoft’s AI marketplace for publishers, Clemson University Press turns 25, and a new prize for early-career researchers

Posted on September 26, 2025 in News

Industry Thoughts on AI and Microsoft’s Plans for a Publisher AI Marketplace

According to Axios, Microsoft is planning to develop a Publisher Content Marketplace (PCM) to pay publishers when their work is used by AI. The pilot program would initially include only a few publishers and then grow to include “more partners over time, working in tandem with them to build out the tools, policies and pricing models that could work for PCM.” Microsoft shared that its Copilot assistant will be the first product included in the marketplace. In other news, a study from the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) reveals that the majority of industry professionals are anxious about AI adoption. However, the study also found that roughly half of both individuals and organizations are using the technology in the workplace. In particular, the 559 professionals surveyed reported use of copyrighted material as their biggest concern. Other insights include a lack of organizational AI policies, differences among professionals in the US and Canada, and that “service providers and retailers are adopting AI at higher rates than publishers and libraries.”

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AI Is Producing “Copycat” Papers, Plus STM’s New Recommendations on AI Use

The International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM) published its final set of classifications for AI use when preparing manuscripts. The classifications are informed by comments on a draft released in May 2025 by STM’s Task and Finish Group (TFG). STM aims for the classifications to guide publishers AI policies and help them assess which AI uses authors need to disclose and when during the publication process. The classification will also be a living document due to the changing nature of AI. On the topic of AI, a recent preprint examined a literature database for “copycat” papers generated by AI. Nature shared that the analysis “identified more than 400 such papers published in 112 journals over the past 4.5 years.” The preprint study also found that the AI-generated work can bypass publishers’ plagiarism detectors.

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Trump Administration vs. Research: Good News (For Now)

Research funding from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) is slowly being returned to Harvard University. Several weeks ago a US judge ruled against the Trump administration’s termination of Harvard’s NIH grants, but researchers did not start receiving funding until late last week. Similarly, a district court judge determined the administration’s NSF terminations to be “illegal because they violated Harvard’s constitutional right to free speech.” Nature underlined that after publishing, “in a joint status update before a judge, both Harvard and the US government asked for more time to ‘work through implementation issues’ of complying fully with the court order.” Researchers at the University of California will also have their NIH grants reinstated. Science explained that U.S. District Court Judge Rita Lin ruled that along with several other federal agencies, the NIH “didn’t follow the law in how those grants can be pulled.” Judge Lin also determined that a prior Supreme Court ruling on scientists’ ability to “seek redress did not prevent UC scientists from asking the district court to restore their grants.”  Nonetheless, Judge Lin did not rule that the grant terminations violated the First Amendment.

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Cambridge University Press Enters Agreement with Max Planck and Clemson UP Commemorates Its 25th Anniversary

Clemson University Press is turning 25! In celebration, the Press will hold a reception next week and highlighted several of its achievements over the years. For instance, the Press reported strong growth, noted its two imprints, and spotlighted its work with Liverpool University Press and Longleaf Services. Former Press director John Morgenstern commented, “Through its regionally rooted yet globally relevant publications and the career training that it provides students, Clemson University Press helps fulfill the institution’s academic and public missions in ways that transcend campus.” Next, Cambridge University Press and Munich’s Max Planck Society entered a new partnership. The agreement “combines evidence-based acquisition and open-access funding,” enabling the Mark Planck Society to “acquire [Cambridge University Press] titles based on user demand.” Max Planck affiliated researchers who’ve recently published with Cambridge will also be able to publish OA and backlist works will be made OA “on a case-by-case basis.”

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Study Examines Who Gets Published in Science

A self-reflexive study from Science provides a behind-the-scenes look at who gets published in the journal. The study found that researchers from elite institutions had a higher likelihood of being published, examining over 110,000 works submitted to Science and Science Advances from 2015 to 2020. Authors from China had a significantly lower acceptance rate. Science noted that journal editors also “rejected a larger share of manuscripts before peer review than after—and those initial vetting decisions accounted for more of the disparities in acceptance rates than the peer reviewers’ recommendations.” Going forward, researchers plan to publish a “free, publicly available, anonymized version of the data used in [the] study.” [Science]

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FT Schroders Business Book Shortlist, MDPI Early Career Researcher Prize, and Submissions Open for the PROSE Awards

The Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award announced its shortlist this week. Carl Benedikt’s How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations from Princeton University Press is among the six shortlisted titles. The winner will be named on December 3rd. Next up, MDPI Books unveiled a new award, the Early Career Researcher Prize. Four MDPI Books’ journals are sponsoring the prize and the winners “will receive full editorial support and a complete waiver of Book Processing Charges.” Submissions close November 16th, and four winners will be revealed in December. Last, the Association of American Publishing is accepting applications for the PROSE Awards. The awards are open to US titles published in 2025 and publishers must be affiliated with the Association of American Publishers (AAP) or the Association of University Presses (AUPresses). Submissions end November 10th.

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