In a momentous industry first, five university presses have joined together in a strategic alliance in order to address the changing dynamics in the scholastic publication industry. Demonstrating the power of strategic alliances, even in overcoming industry challenges, the collaboration brings together the resources of these five publication houses.

Strategic Alliance controls costs

The academic publishing industry has demonstrated increased interest in collaborative models. Considering that some academic books and monographs have a very small, niche target audience, along with the lack of growth in library budgets, the business models behind university presses have been threatened. Subsequently, less academic books are reaching publication, especially when it comes to new academic scholars.

By joining together their efforts, the university presses’ strategic alliance will be able to alter the daunting costs traditionally associated with publication. By controlling the costs through their collaboration, this strategic alliance may pave the way for strategic alliances in other publication efforts.

Collaboration leads to greater academic strides

Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this strategic alliance utilizes collaboration models to ensure that university publication becomes more economically fruitful. Collaborating together on the editing, layout design, and typesetting, the five university presses will be able to publish five more books each annually. Therefore, within five years, 125 additional books will be published, giving the public 125 more books that otherwise would never have made it through publication. Considering that most university presses consider publishing one or two new books a year, having the ability to publish five is a tremendous increase.

According to Stephen Maikowski, the director of NYU Press, the strategic alliance will overcome the economic hurdles in certain topics. For publications that are intellectually important, but that do not present economic viability, this collaboration ensures that critical academic topics still achieve noteworthy exposure.

The power of strategic alliances can be applied to all industries, ranging from academic publications to software ventures. By utilizing creative collaboration processes, companies can expand the economic pie, as well as overcome any traditional economic scaling obstacles.