‍IOP Publishing recently expanded its Journal Home partnership with ResearchGate by increasing the number of journals integrated onto the platform from 18 to 50 journals. Our collaboration with IOP Publishing goes back to 2022, with an initial pilot of 7 titles. The partnership now covers all open access journals, as well as several hybrid and subscription titles, including partner journals. We spoke to Miriam Maus, Chief Publishing Officer, to understand how this supports their publishing strategy. 

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We heard from Claire Webber last year about how ResearchGate is supporting IOP Publishing’s transition to open access. What results have you seen from the partnership?

With our journals more prominent thanks to ResearchGate’s new Journal Home offering, we're seeing really good growth in usage of the content, with more people discovering and downloading it. ResearchGate has a really detailed understanding of who their users are,  which gives us valuable insight. We can track the volume of engaged researchers – those who have more than just a fleeting interest – and we can see that the number is growing. We can also identify the sort of research that is relevant to them and pinpoint where they are in their publishing journey. Essentially, it helps us to deliver a better service and grow our author base.

With our journals more prominent thanks to ResearchGate’s new Journal Home offering, we're seeing really good growth in usage of the content, with more people discovering and downloading it

How does the expanded partnership facilitate IOP Publishing’s strategy for OA and author acquisition?

If we want to attract the best physicists to publish in our journals, we need to ensure they know about us and that we know about them. Attracting and retaining more authors means that we can continue to improve the quality and quantity of the articles we publish and continue to give back to the physics community as part of our learned society status with the Institute of Physics. There is a strong early career audience on ResearchGate and so our partnership is really helping us to build our connections and loyalty with the next generation of researchers.  

Insights we gain from ResearchGate tell us that users on ResearchGate are interested in our content, as readers and as authors, that they understand the scope and requirements of our journals, that they are highly engaged, and that they are producing quality submissions. We’re reaching an audience who are generating research that is really of pivotal interest to our journals.

...users on ResearchGate are interested in our content, as readers and as authors, that they understand the scope and requirements of our journals, that they are highly engaged, and that they are producing quality submissions

How will you measure the impact of the expanded partnership?

Success is based on the level of researcher engagement and the quality of the submissions that come from the platform. We’re also now including some of the journals from our publishing partners so they can also benefit from the increased visibility and knowledge that ResearchGate offers. We are hoping to see more of the same results in terms of usage for these titles.

We’re also now including some of the journals from our publishing partners so they can also benefit from the increased visibility and knowledge that ResearchGate offers

We have also invested in an add-on service for Journal Home that highlights when a user is eligible to benefit from one of our Transformative Open Access Agreements. ResearchGate is able to provide messaging and information about these agreements when a user reads an article from a relevant journal or visits a journal profile. By highlighting publishing opportunities, we hope to be able to maximise the benefit of the Open Access Agreements that we have in place for researchers globally. 

What else has working with ResearchGate provided as a publisher partner that we might not have already heard about?

Publishers exist to protect the integrity of the scientific record and there could be opportunities for ResearchGate to support this endeavour through identity resolution. The fact that any ResearchGate user either has to be affiliated with an institution, or needs to prove they are an active researcher, could be a real benefit from a research integrity perspective.

IOP Publishing takes pride in the fact that we work with organisations who are innovative and like to do things differently. ResearchGate is one of those, so there's a lot of alignment.

IOP Publishing takes pride in the fact that we work with organisations who are innovative and like to do things differently. ResearchGate is one of those, so there's a lot of alignment. In 2023, we really turned a corner in terms of understanding what ResearchGate can offer, and how that can benefit us, that's why we committed to expanding our partnership this year.

Together, we have alighted on impact for readers and authors that are beneficial to us and that ResearchGate can really deliver on.

Developing more analytics-based decisions when it comes to author engagement is an area that is ripe for modernising and developing. ResearchGate shares our belief in this, which helps to strengthen our partnership. Together, we have alighted on impact for readers and authors that are beneficial to us and that ResearchGate can really deliver on. There is a high degree of interest from ResearchGate to understand what we need, coupled with strong capabilities on their side that are not easily replicated by a publisher. ResearchGate clearly has a niche here that can help publishers in a number of ways.

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To find out more about Journal Home, visit: https://www.researchgate.net/journal-home