Frankfurter Buchmesse/Frankfurt Book Fair this year was special. The world’s largest trade fair for books, which sees the highest representation by publishers, was celebrating its 75th anniversary.  

Image source: buchmesse.de/en

Also, after almost a decade of attending the event, Cactus Communications (CACTUS) was exhibiting for the first time. In the last one year, we have made great strides in the space of AI-powered solutions for publishers and we felt this was a great opportunity to showcase our new offerings. Good thing I was accompanied by Nishchay Shah, CTO, and Pablo Palmeiro, Senior Vice President, Publisher, Society and Corporate Partnerships.

A few days before the events, we heard about Brill and De Gruyter joining hands. It was great to see two established publishers coming together. And the news about the American Chemical Society (ACS) acquiring ChronosHub clearly shows key players acknowledging the need for new infrastructure to manage open access publishing. The STM dinner was abuzz with these announcements.

CACTUS was not to be left behind. We announced the launch of Paperpal Copilot, a gen AI-powered tool that helps researchers write papers in half the time, and Preflight for Editorial Desk, which uses AI and human expertise to help journal desks run checks for research integrity, language quality, and technical compliance.

We had the opportunity to showcase these offerings to our old and new publisher partners. Both offerings were very well received and I’m looking forward to helping other publishers leverage our proprietary AI and human expertise to improve their workflow and revenue.

We also announced our partnership with Morressier and the American Society of Microbiology (ASM), two major publishers. Under these partnerships, submitting authors will be able to run pre-submission checks using CACTUS’s Paperpal Preflight product.

A few key themes from the STM Conference and Frankfurt Book Fair resonated with me:

1. In-person meetings are back. This does not mean that online conferences are dead. After all, they are inclusive in a way onsite conferences cannot be. For example, people not restricted by travel and cost can participate in online conferences. But the enthusiasm in meeting colleagues face to face was quite evident and it cannot be replicated in online conferences.
2. Collaborations will continue to grow. The industry continues to be very collaborative and is more open to partnerships than ever before. This was quite evident from the announcements made before and at the fair.
3. AI is no longer just a buzzword but a very well-understood concept in the industry. I saw a marked difference in the quality and depth of conversations and came back with a few very interesting ideas around automation. Publishers were very welcoming in discussing ideas around using AI to improve efficiency and reduce operational costs.
4. Research integrity and peer review, the two key cornerstones of scholarly publishing, remain the most important pillars. There is a broad agreement among stakeholders that a hybrid solution – automation plus human checks – is the way to go.
5. We need new business models. The push towards open access has put tremendous pressure on existing business models and publishers are more open than before to exploring new ideas.

I feel quite optimistic about how we are supporting scholarly publishers and societies in meeting their strategic objectives.

If you would like to discuss research integrity, peer review support, author services, or improving efficiencies using AI, please connect with me at nikeshg@cactusglobal.com or LinkedIn. I also discuss these topics with KOLs and industry leaders in my podcast Insights Xchange. You can catch it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and YouTube.

Looking forward to next year already!

The STM Annual Conference and Dinner (Oct 16-17) and Frankfurter Buchmesse (Oct 18-22) were held in Frankfurt, Germany.

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The sessions covered a lot of ground under the themes of transformation, trust, and transparency. In particular, there was much focus on research integrity and the use of automation/AI to improve workflow efficiency.

Both these areas are something that we at CACTUS are very passionate about, and we have plenty to offer to both our new and existing clients.

There were 2 keynotes, 20 breakout sessions, and 24 educational sessions. Dr. Elisabeth Bik delivered the main keynote. Dr. Bik is a trailblazer working toward identifying image manipulation. She is a renowned microbiologist who has become a specialist in research integrity. Dr. Bik was a researcher for 15 years at Stanford University before transitioning to become a scientific integrity expert. She reported more than 7,000 papers on the concerns of image manipulation. I had the privilege of hosting an episode with Dr. Bik on my podcast, All Things Scicomm, two weeks before the SSP event, and she was kind enough to visit our booth and meet the team.

The issue of fraudulent practices has grown exponentially over the last few months. Retractions were already an issue, but the huge proliferation over the last few months has jeopardized existing revenue models for many Publishers and Societies. In addition, there might be many fake papers that might be added to the system owing to AI and automation. While the industry waits for us and a few others to develop automated checks to support human checks, we rolled out IntegrityGUARD as a service to tackle this issue.

Regarding automation, we had our own session on AI called “Embracing the Future of Publishing with CACTUS AI solutions.” It was well-attended by approximately 80 people in the room.  Nishchay and Chirag explained where we are with AI and linked it to how our solutions helped save time and costs and improve acceptance rates. We received an overwhelming response before the session through polls, at the session through questions, and in the AMA session with Nishchay. From all of the sessions that spoke about automation, I felt that our session was the most balanced. One thing is for certain – many Publishers and Societies are hungry for automated solutions, which is evident from the overwhelming response that Pablo got on one of his posts about rolling out an AI detector.

Chirag was invited to two panels regarding SDGs, open science, and scholarly communications, and he also hosted our poster session titled “Navigating the Chinese research publishing landscape for maximum impact.”

The CACTUS booth was buzzing, and people were really impressed with the solutions we can offer to support the evolving author journey.

Learn more about CACTUS’s solutions: cactusglobal.com/

Or write to us here: cactusglobal.com/contact-us/

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Looking back on my journey at CACTUS, I am able to recall many instances where I had to take a giant leap.

I’d be lying to myself if I said that every decision I took was easy. But I knew that without these decisions, I—and CACTUS as a company—would not be able to achieve its many milestones.

When I joined CACTUS, I was given a tough mandate. As the operations head of its flagship brand, Editage, I was tasked with scaling up operations and quality. That meant doing things better and faster. We had a small team of in-house editors and reviewers, and some trusted freelance editors. We had to expand this pool drastically to accommodate our business goals and find out ways to make our processes leaner.

I realized that the quality review process was time-consuming. We had well-trained editors who could deliver high-quality work, but their work was reviewed thoroughly by senior quality checkers. As a result, there wasn’t enough bandwidth for grooming new freelancers.

This was a problem that had to be fixed quickly. We experimented with a new review process. We called it “smart review”: This involved running some basic checks on the editor’s work. If it met the quality criteria, it was sent to the client. If it didn’t, it was reviewed thoroughly before being sent to the client.

The plan seemed straightforward but implementing it was a Herculean task. We were overhauling a long-followed quality check process. We had to ensure that the in-house team bought into this idea and was calibrated across the board. Easier said than done! We also faced resistance from some reviewers who felt we were diluting the review process and this would have an adverse impact on quality.

These were valid concerns, but I didn’t want to deal with ifs and buts. The goal was clear and we decided to roll out the new review process. And it turned out to be a success. We were able to create a review process that was scalable, agile, and robust, and were able to do more with less. I believe that Editage would not have been able to achieve the scale of operations it enjoys today had it not been for this decision.

I continued looking for opportunities to improve operations at Editage. But life had different plans. I moved to the UK in 2014. This sudden change forced me to revisit my life’s goals. Should I continue doing what I have been doing for six years or should I explore other opportunities?

Little did I know that an exciting, if daunting, opportunity was waiting for me.

Publishers, Journals, and Societies, or PJS, was identified as an important segment for Editage. I was asked to head this new function. But I had to adjust to many new things: working in Europe, building my own team from the ground up, and introducing high-profile stakeholders to our services, which I had no experience with. I was thrilled but nervous.

The newly formed team had started pursuing some leads. But partnering with publishers was a long and slow process, and we were not able to convert leads as quickly as we wanted. While we made some structural and operational changes, we knew that the real game-changer would be building deeper relationships with decision makers.

In January 2015, I attended the APE conference in Berlin, my first conference as the head of PJS. I was very stressed before the conference. I had a lot of self-doubts. Will I be able to make any new connections? Do I know enough about the industry to make an impression?

I decided to go in with a different mindset. I will do what I know best—be attentive, make notes, and talk to as many people as I can (something I love doing!).

I am so happy I took that first step. That experience taught me some lifelong lessons which I remind myself from time to time: It is important that you figure out some things on your own. Identify your fears, address your concerns, and take the first step! One way or the other, you will move forward. As the saying goes, action is better than inaction.

Today, we have 175 partner publishers, journals, and societies! This would not have been possible without that important step I had taken five years ago!

This writeup is part of a series called The CACTUS Way Leader Stories. The CACTUS Way is what we collectively call our 8 guiding principles. We asked the senior cadre at CACTUS to share personal experiences where they practiced or identified with these guiding principles. These stories of struggle and reinvention, despair and hope, conflict and collaboration, and self-doubt and self-discovery make for an interesting read.

Learn more about The CACTUS Way here: https://cactusglobal.com/careers/about-us/culture-and-values/

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I was given the task of building a team that understood the ground realities of these players and identified custom solutions to meet their needs. The needs of the PJS segment are dynamic. For example, earlier publishers only served as a portal for research review and publication. But in the last decade or so, many have embraced the paradigm shift brought about by the open access movement and have started expanded their bouquet of offerings.

CACTUS wants to keep step with these changes and give PJS access to new, exciting solutions. Which is why I’m excited by the launch of the new CACTUS websites across our key markets. These websites not only offer all our solutions on one platform but also allow visitors to explore solutions based on the segment they identify with. Publishers, journals, and societies will be able to navigate to familiar solutions offered under our Editage and Impact Science brands as well as new solutions offered under the R ecosystem, workflow solutions developed under UNSILO, and communication and dissemination solutions for the life sciences under Cactus Life Sciences—all through a dedicated page.

I sincerely hope our partners take the time to explore the solutions we have on offer. If you don’t see a solution that meets your needs, we’ll be more than happy to discuss how we can accommodate your requirements.

And, of course, feedback on the website and our services is always welcome.

Global: https://cactusglobal.com/careers/

South Korea:  https://cactusglobal.com/careers/kr/

China: https://cactusglobal.com/careers/ch/

Japan: https://cactusglobal.com/careers/jp/

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