The academic publisher De Gruyter and The Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress) today announced that they have reached an agreement for De Gruyter to acquire bepress’s journal portfolio. The agreement covers a total of 67 journals in the areas of Law, Business/Economics, Humanities, and Natural Sciences.
Berkeley Electronic Press was founded in 1999 by scholars as an alternative to existing academic publishers, and in particular their pricing policies. Since then, the press has succeeded in creating high-quality content, primarily as a result of founding their own journals and by attracting top-notch scholars.
Bepress President and CEO, Jean-Gabriel Bankier, said “We are proud of the journals we founded and the innovative journal model we developed, and believe our journals are in good hands with De Gruyter. We are exiting the subscription-based journal publishing business because we believe we can have the greatest impact on scholarly communications by dedicating ourselves to enabling library-led publishing and research dissemination programs with Digital Commons.”
De Gruyter will take on the journals with immediate effect. They will be integrated into the existing editorial offices, and personnel will be added as needed. The subject area Business/Economics, which was previously not part of the De Gruyter portfolio, will be under the publishing supervision of the Law Department.
“The acquisition of Berkeley Electronic Press’ journals is an important milestone in De Gruyter’s internationalization efforts,” according to Dr. Sven Fund, Managing Director. “Not only will we gain the highest quality English-speaking authors and their content for our program, but we will also be able to add a prestigious community of subscribers to the De Gruyter family.”
De Gruyter’s portfolio increases from 173 to 235 journals through the acquisition.
