In October 2024, KGL (KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.) acquired Accucoms, the leading provider of sales and marketing services to academic and professional publishers. This combined operation positions KGL as the only provider truly serving scholarly publishers along the entire content lifecycle, from manuscript submission through delivery of print and digital products, and now post-publication sales and marketing support.
Since the acquisition, KGL Accucoms has published the results of a global librarian survey, increased regional representation agreements with multiple customers, and closed several national deals, including facilitating the inclusion of five leading U.S. publishers in India’s “One Nation One Subscription” (ONOS) initiative.
The acquisition of Origin Editorial in March represents a strategic alignment of KGL’s commitment to providing comprehensive high- quality peer-review solutions, says president Atul Goel.
Meanwhile, enhancement on Smart Publish—KGL’s high-speed quality-assured SaaS publishing platform—is ongoing. “Smart Publish can take manuscripts from acceptance to author proofs in 24 hours,” says marketing director Mike Groth. “By uniting human intelligence and care with sophisticated technology such as NLP, AI, automated templates, and workflow engines, Smart Publish alleviates wait times while achieving best-in-class editorial and typographic quality with record-setting speed to publication.”
Then there is the award-winning Smart Review, KGL’s editorial integrity platform that has been lauded for its ability to detect signs of research fraud, identify duplicated images from a database of over 75 million published figures, and ensure compliance with journal and funder data policies.
“Smart Review integrates seamlessly with leading manuscript management systems including Editorial Manager and ScholarOne Manuscripts as well as third-party technologies including ImageTwin, Clear Skies’ Papermill Alarm, and DataSeer’s SnapShot tool,” Groth says. “By eliminating tedious manual tasks, Smart Review frees editorial staff to focus on higher-value work while providing a transparent overview of journal performance. Combining AI-powered screening with expert oversight, it delivers efficiency, accuracy, and resilience at the intersection of people, workflows, and technology to safeguard science and publisher reputation.”
Research fraud is becoming increasingly sophisticated, with paper mills, predatory journals, and brokers exploiting weaknesses in the publishing process. But publishers and editorial teams can respond to these threats with smarter strategies and stronger safeguards, says Goel.
“Trust in research begins with trust in the publishing process. At KGL, we support research integrity through a unified platform that combines expert-led review, automated checks, and integrated tools to help publishers detect risk early and improve the quality of scholarly communication,” Goel says. “Our workflows ensure research integrity through rigorous checks on ethics, authorship, citations, data transparency, and clear escalation pathways. Aside from enabling faster editorial triage, Smart Review offers greater transparency and a stronger foundation for reproducibility.”
For educational publishers, KGL along with sister companies Sheridan and Continuum, recently launched Education Bridge, the industry’s first comprehensive service suite for K-12 publishers. “It combines the specialized expertise of three companies under the CJK Group umbrella to serve as a single-point support for content creation, printing and manufacturing, in-class experience and sourcing, and fulfillment,” says Goel.
As for KGL PubFactory, the online hosting division recently launched Oxford University Press’s Blackstone’s Police Q&A. “Powered by Learnosity, a cutting-edge online assessment platform, this new product provides an extensive online database of exam-style practice questions for sergeant, inspector, and investigator candidates,” says Groth. “The revision tools are integrated on the PubFactory platform with the Learnosity Assessment Engine, a leading cloud-based assessment API.”
Head over to booth F104 in Hall 4.0 to check out Smart Review and Smart Publish from KGL, or join them for KGL Accucoms’ longstanding and highly anticipated Beerfest at 5.00 p.m. on Thursday, October 16.
