Editors of a journal run by a prestigious math institute will close up shop and form a new journal with an independent publisher, with one editor citing Wiley’s increased oversight as the reason behind the move.
Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics is the journal for the Courant Institute of Mathematics at New York University. The journal has been published in partnership with Wiley for over 75 years, and all the editors of the journal are affiliated with Courant.
In emails Retraction Watch has seen, the editorial board notified Wiley in January that the institute would not be renewing its contract with the publisher once it expired at the end of 2026.
Until recently, Courant had control over most decisions, including which papers to publish and handling typesetting in-house, editorial board member Scott Armstrong told Retraction Watch. But in recent years, Wiley “has been annoying,” he said, “forcing unilateral decisions” and increasing editorial control.
The publisher asked the board to use Wiley’s “horrendously bad editorial software instead of the software we already use,” said Armstrong, a professor of mathematics at NYU.
Editors at two mathematics journals have resigned this year alone, with each citing increased oversight from the publishers as the reason for their departures. In March, editors of an algebra journal resigned after Taylor & Francis ran “roughshod” over standard refereeing processes in math by requiring multiple reviewers per paper. The next month, editors who resigned from an Elsevier journal said the publisher was forcing the board to appoint members from a wider range of countries, when math is “completely merit based.”
The unique requirements of math journals play a role in this case as well, Armstrong said, with Wiley wanting to “make certain changes that are just weird in mathematics.” These adjustments include changing the order in which references appear in a paper and proposing a double-column format.
Armstrong also said “it is not lost on anyone that their pricing of CPAM is crazy — one of the most expensive journals in mathematics.” Many of his colleagues from other institutions “refused to referee for or submit to the journal,” he added.
According to the journal’s website, publishing open access is optional and costs $5,490 per article. Among mathematics journals, it is Wiley’s most expensive hybrid or open-access journal to publish in, according to data from the publisher. A subscription to the journal costs anywhere from $95 for Courant members to nearly $10,000 annually.
The entire editorial board will resume their duties in a journal owned wholly by Courant at an independent, not-for-profit publisher, Mathematical Sciences Publishers.
The journal’s shuttering will join our Mass Resignations List at number 54 and is the fifth case we’ve reported this year.
Armstrong also said Wiley seemed “surprised” by the move and is giving the editors the “silent treatment.” The publisher “basically never replied to our email informing them of our decision to not renew, apart from a formal confirmation of receipt,” he said.
“We are proud of our collaborative relationship, which has yielded a sustainable journal publishing program, and hope we can find a way to continue working with the Courant Institute,” a Wiley spokesperson told us. “Over the years, we have been happy to accommodate requests from the editors, whether having to do with peer review best practices, improving production workflows, or identifying a strategic focus for the journal’s continued success.”
The new journal, The Courant Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, will begin accepting submissions this year with an expected initial publishing date of early 2027, according to Mathematical Science Publishers’ website. Subscriptions to the new journal range from roughly $2,000 to $2,500, depending on access type. The institute announced the new journal on May 29.
“We think that the community will recognize that the new journal is a continuation of the old one in the sense that it is the flagship journal of Courant,” Armstrong told us, with the hope “the prestige of the old journal will transfer over.”
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Finally.
Good to see, and hopefully the trend will continue. And referees who donate their labor to the likes of Wiley might want to reconsider what their obligations to the field actually are. There are more worthy charities to support.
This story could use a bit of clarification. Who owned the journal. Courant or Wiley? If Courant declined to renew contract, sounds like Courant owned the journal and had a publishing and hosting agreement with Wiley. In that case, why rename the journal and resetting all the indexing, doi domain, etc.?
Changing publishers is common with society owned journals. Usually low drama.
I’m an unpaid editor at a society-owned journal that had a publishing agreement with Wiley for 10 years before splitting a couple years ago. Blackwell primarily published society journals and when Wiley bought Blackwell, Wiley became the biggest publisher of European and NA based societies. With us, we left a small publisher focused on society journals for the allure of Wiley’s larger reach, and better finances. It was good and then it wasn’t. Our main reason for leaving Wiley for a smaller university press was Wiley was pressuring us to flip from a society membership subscription emphasis to an author funded fully OA journal. There are tremendous inequities with OA fees. We’re happier, but still some regrets that it soured with Wiley after they got heavy handed.
“Published jointly by Wiley and New York University’s prestigious Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, we’re an influential, impactful venue for excellent research papers on recent developments in partial differential equations, probability, mathematical physics, geometric analysis, algebra, computer and data science, and applied mathematics.”
Not a clear answer, but it might have been some sort of joint venture or agreement. Maybe simpler for them to separate cleanly this way.
Via: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10970312
Regarding “The next month, editors who resigned from an Elsevier journal said the publisher was forcing the board to appoint members from a wider range of countries, when math is “completely merit based”, let me clarify that this is not accurate. It was more subtle and more complicated than that. However, the Publisher succeeded in destroying a prestigious journal. Congratulations.