Engineering news
The Proceedings are known and respected worldwide and were first published in 1847 under a single title which remained until 1963 when it changed to being published in two parts. As mechanical engineering widened its scientific interests and further topics emerged into everyday engineering usage, further parts were created as required until the present day, where there are now 16 parts (A to P), all called journals. In addition there are two other journals; the International Journal of Engine Research and the Journal of Strain Analysis for Engineering Design which are IMechE journals, published by Sage but which do not form part of the IMechE Proceedings.
How does Sage fit in?
In the years building up to 2010, the trustee board of the IMechE were faced with the changing patterns of scientific publishing. Whereas before this time, many members took out individual subscriptions for the parts of the Proceedings which interested them, more members started to rely on obtaining the papers they found to be of interest, from their company or university libraries. In addition, some larger publishers were able to sell packages of several journals at greatly reduced prices which IMechE could not do as they only had the main product of the Proceedings. There were some books and some conference Proceedings also published but the main diet was the Proceedings. Add to this the move to electronic publication, open-access journals which are freely available for all and a very large increase in the internationalisation of research, the trustee board was faced with a massive investment in its publishing activity to make it 'fit for purpose' or develop a partnership with an international publisher who already had prepared for the major changes lying ahead.
With these considerations in mind the IMechE trustee board took the decision to sell the Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers under a 100 year agreement, together with the International Journal of Engine Research and the Journal of Strain Analysis for Engineering Design, to Sage Publishing. As part of the contractual arrangements, IMechE retained copyright of the papers, influence over quality aspects of the journals and, for five years, a financial interest in the form of a share of the profits of the journals. They also retained rights over the use of the IMechE brand.
2010-2015
The IMechE already had a publications board in existence and this was continued throughout the first five year period following the sale of the IMechE titles but in a somewhat different manifestation. An extract from the trustee board minutes at the time, describes the role of the new publications board as: “To oversee and be consulted over key decisions that might have an impact on the Journals or the reputation of the IMechE including:
· Changes to the peer review process
· Key editorial appointments such as appointment or resignation of editors-in-chief
· Promotional materials (on and offline) where the IMechE logo or brand is used
· New product developments and strategy
· Guidance and insight to developments in engineering nationally, internationally and globally, with a view to extending the number of parts if this seems appropriate.”
To these were added “monitoring of the financial position of the journals and encouraging nominations for major awards of the institution”. The financial dimension was to verify the income which was contractually due to the IMechE for a period of five years.
The committee consisted of five members from the IMechE and four members from Sage. As a vice-president of the IMechE, I chaired the publications board. In September 2012, two years after the sale of the journals to Sage, I hosted a meeting in the Sage offices in London, of all the editors of IMechE journals to discuss how the publications were progressing under the new ownership and to see how the journals’ editors were perceiving the Sage/ IMechE collaboration.
The meeting was very positive and concluded that after the first two years of Sage’s ownership, the transition had happened very smoothly. Each editor in chief had formed their own editorial boards of internationally renowned researchers with a wide geographical spread of membership. Whilst the overarching name of the Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers was vital to the continuity of the learned society role entrusted to us, the eighteen individual journal names were also to be promoted more in marketing the products (e.g., Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit). All the editors and the publishers recognised the need for continuing close relationships between the IMechE and Sage and there was general agreement that our journals were reaching a wider readership than before the transfer of ownership.
2015 to the present day
On the 23 September 2015 the last meeting of the IMechE Publications Board was held and the new Sage/ IMechE publications panel replaced it. With the buy-out now complete, the emphasis for the new panel turned exclusively to the science, quality publications procedures and strong collaboration between Sage and IMechE. The current publications panel consists of three Sage staff and six IMechE/ editors-in-chief members including the chair. I have been honoured to be chair of both from 2010 onwards and have overseen the practices of the journals metamorphosing into those more usual to Sage, with editors-in-chief taking on much more responsibility for the whole publication process. The overriding qualification for board membership is to be a well-respected researcher who has a burning desire to support the dissemination of modern engineering science. Boards are necessarily international and diverse and it is these boards that set and maintain the standards of the individual Journals.
Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, the fact that our boards are so diverse meant that we had to hold meetings electronically. With members of boards from California to Auckland, it is difficult to meet physically, in fact even meeting electronically it can be challenging. Email, Zoom and Teams contact between board members seems to work well. Equally by now having the Sage production presence around the world coupled with our international editorial boards, our authorship has also become truly global.
I can only speak for the current publication panel but there is a great desire to retain very close collaboration between Sage and the IMechE, as well as a drive to fulfil our professional responsibilities to disseminate scientific knowledge relevant to modern mechanical engineering. All IMechE members enjoy free access to our historical output via the institution’s website. I would certainly encourage you to take a look at the Sage and IMechE websites.