Springer Nature has appointed Rachel Burley to the role of Publishing Director, BioMed Central and SpringerOpen, effective as of 1st February 2016. Her responsibilities will include all of BioMed Central and SpringerOpen’s editorial and commercial activity.
Burley was previously with John Wiley & Sons, where she was Vice President and Director of Open Access and Business Development. There, she led the strategic planning and development of Wiley’s open access initiatives and was instrumental in identifying and implementing strategic partnerships. Prior to that, Burley was Vice President and Publisher of Life Sciences at Wiley, and spent seven years at Nature Publishing Group.
Sam Burridge, Managing Director of the open research business at Springer Nature, said: “We’re proud to have an industry leading team of talented people working in the Open Research Group at Springer Nature, and Rachel Burley will be a fantastic addition. Rachel’s commercial and editorial experience, understanding and admiration of our brands, combined with her passion for open access makes her a great fit for us as we continue to grow our team.”
Burley said: “I am delighted to be joining Springer Nature, and I am especially looking forward to working with BioMed Central, who have done so much to advance the open access model over the last 15 years.”
Springer Nature is a pioneer in the field of open research, publishing 553 fully open access journals (and 56,000 articles from those journals) in 2015. BioMed Central is the first commercial open access publisher, and for 15 years, they have been making scientific research freely accessible and discoverable through partnerships, innovation and collaboration with the scientific community.