John Wiley has expanded its presence in the open access field with the acquisition of Hindawi, a London-based scientific research publisher of more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific, technical, and medical journals. Wiley paid $298 million for Hindawi which had 2020 revenue of $40 million.
In making the announcement of the acquisition, Wiley cited not only Hindawi’s portfolio of journals but also its “highly efficient publishing platform" and its "low-cost infrastructure” as reasons for doing the deal.
According to Wiley, the addition of Hindawi doubles the publisher's "gold" OA journals, offering researchers more options to publish within Wiley titles. In addition, Wiley said, the purchase of Hindawi strengthens its position in the global research market, particularly in China.
"Similar to Wiley, we are driven by a mission to advance openness in research, working with researchers, publishers, institutions, and organizations to build a vibrant ecosystem that helps this global community thrive," said Paul Peters, Hindawi’s CEO, who will continue to lead Hindawi as part of Wiley’s Research business. "With Wiley’s commitment to Hindawi and open access, we are excited to accelerate scientific discovery, collaboration, and innovation to maximize the impact of research for future generations."
Wiley noted the critical role Hindawi, which was founded in 1997 and became a fully OA publisher in 2007, has played in advancing open access publishing, a model under which scholarly articles are made freely accessible to researchers with costs covered by publication and author fees rather than subscriptions.
