Asian Journal of Andrology announces co-publishing agreement with Nature Publishing Group

The Asian Journal of Andrology (AJA) and Nature Publishing Group (NPG) announce a newly signed co-publishing agreement. AJA is jointly sponsored by the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica (SIMM), Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). This new long-term partnership with NPG represents a leap forward for AJA. The Acta Pharmacologica Sinica (APS), another journal sponsored by SIMM, simultaneously announces their publishing partnership with NPG.

AJA focuses on the increasingly important branch of medicine_andrology_that deals with the male reproductive physiology and pathology and is the official journal of the Asian Society of Andrology. Since its foundation in 1999, AJA has established an international reputation in andrology and related fields. In 2007, AJA developed a new strategy to promote the international reach of AJA. As part of this strategy, AJA established a new editorial board containing more than 100 well-known international experts and appointed five regional coordinators from Asia, Europe, North America, Australia and Africa.

NPG is a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd., dedicated to serving the academic, professional scientific and medical communities. It is a global company with headquarters in London and offices in New York, San Francisco, Washington DC, Boston, Tokyo, Paris, Madrid, Munich, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Delhi, Mexico City and Basingstoke.

NPG Publishing Director David Swinbanks said, "We are excited to be co-publishing these journals with such distinguished partners. These new agreements, together with our existing partnership to publish the journal Cell Research, also based in Shanghai, mean that from 2009 we will publish the top three ranked journals in life science or chemistry based in mainland China. These are excellent additions to our program of partnerships with key scientific and clinical organizations across the Asia-Pacific region."

"We are delighted that NPG, which is renowned as one of the world's premier science publishers, will now be co-publishing these two high-quality journals with us", said Prof. Jian Ding, Director of SIMM. "We expect that this new partnership will help the journals to go from strength-to-strength in the future".

Vice President of SJTU Zheng-Gang Zhu said "Our university is pleased to be a sponsor of the top andrology journal in the Asia-Pacific, especially now that it will be co-published by NPG. This cooperation with NPG will build on the international reputation of AJA, furthering communication between Chinese researchers and their international peers."

"This is an exciting partnership between AJA and NPG, improving both AJA's global reach and NPG's standing in Asia and China." said Prof. Yi-Fei Wang, Editor-in-Chief of AJA.

These partnerships are the latest in a series of partnerships that NPG Nature Asia-Pacific is undertaking with scientific and clinical societies in this region. NPG Nature Asia-Pacific is a wing of NPG and has offices in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Delhi and Melbourne.

AJA will take advantage of NPG's strengths including editorial expertise, pioneering web technologies, innovative formats and high-quality production to provide premium information for scientific researchers in the public and private sectors, government agencies and educators. Papers published in AJA will receive high exposure through nature.com, which has over 35 million page downloads per month, and can also benefit from press coverage and quick publication, including publication ahead of print.

These landmark agreements, alongside the recent launch of the website Nature China, mark the next steps in NPG's broader strategy to publish the best of Chinese science.

Just as Prof. Yi-Fei Wang said during the signing ceremony, with this beginning we are half way there! Today we have made a splendid start and we have full confidence in having a splendid future! Our aim should be attained, our aim must be attained, and our aim can certainly be attained!

Links:
Asian Journal of Andrology: http://www.asiaandro.com
Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica: http://www.simm.ac.cn/English/English.htm
Shanghai Jiao Tong University: http://www.sjtu.edu.cn/english/index/index.htm
Nature Publishing Group: http://www.nature.com
NPG Nature Asia-Pacific: http://www.natureasia.com
Nature China: http://www.nature.com/nchina