Leading academic publisher De Gruyter announced recently the launch of De Gruyter Open, a one-stop publishing destination focused on bringing Open Access to the group’s increasingly diversified portfolio.

The move reflects De Gruyter’s continuous effort to offer complete and comprehensive publishing solutions to their rapidly growing range of partners. There is no doubt that the past two years have proven transformative for the publisher, whose activity can be traced all the way back to the 18th century. The company has recently witnessed a notable expansion in its global reach thanks to a series of strategic acquisitions – from partnering with Harvard University Press to the purchase of Birkhäuser, the Swiss-based specialist publisher for architecture and design, or German academic publishing group Akademie Oldenbourg to name but a few – along with the opening of its first Chinese office. But it is major investments in online technologies and a determined foray into Open Access that has marked the development of De Gruyter into one of the most innovative, yet robust contemporary scientific publishers.

While constant change and innovation may have helped to establish it as one of the contemporary leaders of scholarly publishing, for several decades, the name De Gruyter has been synonymous with high standards. Now, it is time for De Gruyter Open to follow in these footsteps and maintain the same strict policy of quality control by means of stringent, yet transparent peer review, coupled with a bespoke editorial team. “De Gruyter upholds its highest standards for selection and curation of content for all imprints”, confirms Sven Fund, CEO, who specifies that De Gruyter Open will be no different: “We stand for rigorous peer review for journal articles and books, and no exceptions apply.”

The offer proposed by De Gruyter Open has been tailored to fulfill the needs of authors and Learned Societies alike. It will be of great benefit to scholars who want to publish research results immediately and fully in Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License. De Gruyter Open’s range encompasses all major scientific disciplines, with a versatile selection of journals and book programs endorsed by the world’s leading scientists, including Nobel Prize Winners. The company aims to continually partner with societies to deliver all-around Open Access publishing services – De Gruyter Open’s journals are all fully compliant with existing OA funding mandates.

It must be noted that this occasion marks the full integration of Versita, the imprint acquired by De Gruyter in 2012, into De Gruyter Open. “In line with our Open Access pledge, we are committed to the needs of authors, societies and readers, thus establishing a sound and strong Open Access solution within and not outside our established publishing program”, says Fund. “De Gruyter Open is a formidable, viable option, if we want to expand on our portfolio without giving up of our values in today’s market environment.”

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