Academic publisher Oxford University Press (OUP) has completed 100 years in India. Nigel Portwood, chief executive of the 450-year-old publisher, spoke with Srijana Mitra Das about major forces reshaping publishing, Chinese academics versus Indians - and how OUP responded to the Ramanujan essay controversy:
What are the top trends driving academic publishing today?
Publishing is really transforming at the moment - probably at a rate we haven't seen for hundreds of years. Three things are having an impact. The first - globalisation. More money's being spent globally on education and academic research. Emerging economies are driving that growth - being competitive is very important to them. We're also finding a convergence in education systems. Thirty years ago, a South Asian country would think only of what it needed. Now it compares itself with other economies. So, many things learnt from one country are applicable to others.
The second trend is digitisation, affecting every media industry - it's hit us with force. It's totally changing the way publishing looks, processes inside publishing firms, the way we sell. The third trend is competitive intensity. OUP is the largest university press by a long way - bigger than all our competitors put toge-ther - but we compete with much larger players who aren't university publishers. These three forces are incredibly powerful.
How does the Indian market fit this picture?
India is a microcosm of everything i've described - it's one of our broadest-based businesses. We do more types of publishing here than any market outside the US or UK. It's growing incredibly rapidly. The hunger for education and academic information here is enormous. We're celebrating 100 years in India - the intensity of its growth, the quality of editorial work and academic research really strikes me. India will be in the top global economies soon - that's no surprise to me when i see the dynamism, innovation and entrepreneurship here.
We also export India to the world - we publish Indian academics for readers overseas. That's something i've really been struck by. India's one of the first markets which is both emerging and exporting quality materials.
China's similar - how does liberal academic publishing compare between the two?
People often talk about censorship in China. It's funny, my experience of the academic community there is that it really values freedom of expression. If you compromise that, acade-mics react very strongly...i think China understands its research will drive its economy in the future. Academics are allowed to express themselves. I find Chinese academics pretty open - but i think they're quieter than Indian counterparts who very much project themselves on a world stage, in a healthy way for academic progress, while Chinese academics tend to keep to themselves. If you measured academic research by journal articles though, China is now number two after the US.
Speaking of freedom, after the Ramanujan essay controversy began, OUP dropped this from its revised publication list - was that wise?
I don't think the story was properly understood. There was misinterpretation. The book fell out of publication for the usual reasons - we publish thousands every year, not every book stays. It was probably unfortunate this book fell out of print before the controversy because people somehow linked the two. But we never stopped printing that book for any censorship reasons or pressure put on us. We never apologised for publishing it.
As soon as we realised there was concern from the scholarly community, as quickly as we could, we made it available. For us, freedom of expression comes first.
What are the top trends driving academic publishing today?
Publishing is really transforming at the moment - probably at a rate we haven't seen for hundreds of years. Three things are having an impact. The first - globalisation. More money's being spent globally on education and academic research. Emerging economies are driving that growth - being competitive is very important to them. We're also finding a convergence in education systems. Thirty years ago, a South Asian country would think only of what it needed. Now it compares itself with other economies. So, many things learnt from one country are applicable to others.
The second trend is digitisation, affecting every media industry - it's hit us with force. It's totally changing the way publishing looks, processes inside publishing firms, the way we sell. The third trend is competitive intensity. OUP is the largest university press by a long way - bigger than all our competitors put toge-ther - but we compete with much larger players who aren't university publishers. These three forces are incredibly powerful.
How does the Indian market fit this picture?
India is a microcosm of everything i've described - it's one of our broadest-based businesses. We do more types of publishing here than any market outside the US or UK. It's growing incredibly rapidly. The hunger for education and academic information here is enormous. We're celebrating 100 years in India - the intensity of its growth, the quality of editorial work and academic research really strikes me. India will be in the top global economies soon - that's no surprise to me when i see the dynamism, innovation and entrepreneurship here.
We also export India to the world - we publish Indian academics for readers overseas. That's something i've really been struck by. India's one of the first markets which is both emerging and exporting quality materials.
China's similar - how does liberal academic publishing compare between the two?
People often talk about censorship in China. It's funny, my experience of the academic community there is that it really values freedom of expression. If you compromise that, acade-mics react very strongly...i think China understands its research will drive its economy in the future. Academics are allowed to express themselves. I find Chinese academics pretty open - but i think they're quieter than Indian counterparts who very much project themselves on a world stage, in a healthy way for academic progress, while Chinese academics tend to keep to themselves. If you measured academic research by journal articles though, China is now number two after the US.
Speaking of freedom, after the Ramanujan essay controversy began, OUP dropped this from its revised publication list - was that wise?
I don't think the story was properly understood. There was misinterpretation. The book fell out of publication for the usual reasons - we publish thousands every year, not every book stays. It was probably unfortunate this book fell out of print before the controversy because people somehow linked the two. But we never stopped printing that book for any censorship reasons or pressure put on us. We never apologised for publishing it.
As soon as we realised there was concern from the scholarly community, as quickly as we could, we made it available. For us, freedom of expression comes first.
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