About Us
In response to the rapid growth in output of research from the Asia-Pacific region in recent years, NPG Nature Asia-Pacific was formed in January 2006 out of Nature Japan K.K. , the representative company for Nature Publishing Group (NPG) in Japan set up in Tokyo in 1987 to publish Nature. The renamed company brings together NPG staff located across the region in offices in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Melbourne and Delhi.
NPG Nature Asia-Pacific has more than doubled in size since formation to nearly 70 staff as of July 2008. Building on the strong foundations of the sales, marketing and editorial activities of Nature Japan K.K., several new publishing operations have been put in place that represent both the various publishing activities of NPG and new activities unique to NPG Nature Asia-Pacific.
One of NPG's newest research journals, Nature Photonics, launched in January 2007, has its core editorial team including editorial production based in Tokyo with satellite editorial operations in London and San Francisco. Prior to this move, all Nature research journals have been based in either the United Kingdom or United States.
The core Nature Photonics team have been placed in Tokyo because of the rapidly growing strength of industrial and academic research in photonics in Japan and neighbouring Asia. For similar reasons, a Chinese-speaking editor and Japanese-speaking consultant editor of Nature Nanotechnology, launched in October 2006, have been appointed in Tokyo.
The editors of Nature Photonics and Nature Nanotechnology are networking with researchers throughout the region to encourage submission of top class research articles to their journals; to involve more researchers from the Asia-Pacific region in the peer review of articles submitted to their journals; and to spot some of the best research being published in local journals and presented at local conferences so that it can be highlighted in the pages of Nature Photonics and Nature Nanotechnology.
In addition to its own Nature-branded journals, NPG also publishes many journals on behalf of various academic scientific societies and organizations. Until recently all of these journals were based in either Europe or the United States. NPG Nature Asia-Pacific has begun a new academic journal programme for the Asia-Pacific region run by an associate publisher in Melbourne and overseen by the Asia-Pacific Associate Director of NPG in Tokyo with support staff in both locations.
Cell Research, China's highest impact journal was the first to join the programme in January 2006 followed by Immunology and Cell Biology of Australia and New Zealand in January 2007. Several more journals from Japan, China and Australia are joining the programme from January 2009. For details see our press release of 18 April 2008
The aim of the programme is to select some of the best journals in the region and work with them to enhance their quality and impact. This is done by tapping into the editorial and publishing expertise of NPG and by hosting the journals on the powerful nature.com website that receives nearly 50 million page downloads a month. For example, the impact factor of Cell Research has increased from 1.9 in 2005 when NPG reached a partnership agreement with the journal to 4.2 in 2008
NPG Nature Asia-Pacific has spearheaded a new initiative in medical communications launched by NPG in 2006, Macmillan Medical Communications (MMC), named after Macmillan Publishers Ltd. to which NPG belongs.
MMC's operations in Asia based in Tokyo are growing rapidly and have already achieved profitability in the first full year of operations since launch in July 2006.
MMC is a strategic medical communications agency that provides customized products and services for partners in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries and is able to draw on the strength of NPG's high quality medical content.
MMC's activities include the creation of translated editions of NPG medical journals sponsored by phamaceutical companies and distributed free to the medical community as well as customized products and services for the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.
Following the success of MMC operations in Tokyo, a new wing of MMC was set up in July 2007 in Madrid to cover medical communications business in local languages in Europe and Latin America.
Another activity first established by NPG Nature Asia-Pacific is the provision of custom publishing services for institutions and research organizations in the region. Although there has been a dramatic surge in the quantity and quality of research from the Asia-Pacific in recent years, awareness of the leading research groups and research institutions in the region among the scientific community worldwide remains low.
NPG Nature Asia-Pacific is working with various institutions and research groups in the Asia Pacific to create publications both in print and online that build greater awareness of their best research by tapping into the publishing, editorial and marketing skills of NPG. In December 2007, a website created jointly by NPG Nature Asia-Pacific and the Asia-Pacific International Molecular Biology Network (A-IMBN) was launched on natureasia.com. This website, called A-IMBN Research, highlights some of the best research being published by the approximately 300 members and 18 member institutions of A-IMBN. Free access to A-IMBN Research is made possible through the support of various institutes and organizations in the Asia-Pacific region.
In April 2008, we launched NPG Asia Materials in partnership with Tokyo Insitute of Technology to highlight some of the best materials research in the region and in June 2008 we launched the RIKEN Podcast, a monthly service for RIKEN RESEARCH on nature.com to promote some of the best research at RIKEN, one of Japan’s leading research organizations.
In a similar vein, NPG Nature Asia-Pacific working with NPG headquarters in London and its web team in the United States has created Nature China, a website hosted on nature.com that highlights some of the best research being published by researchers in mainland China and Hong Kong. Nature China is run out of the Hong Kong office of NPG Nature Asia-Pacific and free access to the website is made possible thanks to support from the phamaceutical company Astrazeneca. Similarly, the Nature India website was launched in January 2008 and is run out of Delhi.
Through these numerous publishing initiatives, NPG Nature Asia-Pacific is rapidly helping to build the profile and awareness of the best research in the Asia Pacific.
These new publishing activities are built on the continuing and growing strength of NPG Nature Asia-Pacific's sales activities that provide electronic and print access to NPG journals to institutions and scientists in the region and also provide opportunities to advertize in NPG publications both in print and online.
David Swinbanks, PhD
Publishing Director, Nature Publishing Group (NPG)
CEO NPG Nature Asia-Pacific
July 2008