De Gruyter acquires 67 journals from Berkeley Electronic Press

[Krista Zimmer <krista.zimmer@degruyter.com>]

(with apologies for cross-posting)

De Gruyter acquires 67 journals from Berkeley Electronic Press

Berlin, 16 Sept 2011

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.

Contact

Krista Zimmer
Marketing Manager - North America
Phone +1 857-284-7073 x 106
krista.zimmer@degruyter.com<mailto:krista.zimmer@degruyter.com>


Bepress: Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress) exists to serve 
academia. We deliver scholarly communications and publishing 
services for academic institutions, empowering their communities 
to showcase and share their works for maximum impact.


De Gruyter: The independent academic publishing house De Gruyter 
can look back on a history spanning over 260 years. The 
publishing group with headquarters in Berlin and Boston annually 
publishes over 800 new titles in the humanities, medicine, 
science and law and more than 170 journals and digital media. 
http://www.degruyter.com/