Wiley-Blackwell, The Hastings Center partner to publish leading journal on bioethics

Wiley-Blackwell, the Scientific, Technical, Medical, and Scholarly (STMS) publishing business of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is pleased to announce a new partnership with The Hastings Center, to publish the Hastings Center Report, one of the leading journals in the field of bioethics. The partnership aims to broaden the reach of the Hastings Center Report, particularly by expanded access to libraries.

The self-published Report publishes essays, commentary, and scholarly and research articles on ethical and social issues raised by advances in medicine and the life sciences. Recent issues have included two series-one on synthetic biology and one on psychiatric diagnosis and treatment in children-as well as articles on paid organ donation in Pakistan, and paid oocyte donation in the United States. Articles in the Report are frequently cited by the media and generate significant debate on blogs.

The Hastings Center, one of the world's first bioethics research institutes, was founded in 1969, at a time when revolutionary developments such as organ transplantation and genetic testing were posing new ethical dilemmas for individuals and society. The Hastings Center Report was launched the following year to bring these and other emerging issues into public and scholarly debate.

"The relationship brings Wiley-Blackwell's expertise in publishing, without losing what has been attractive about self-publishing," said Gregory E. Kaebnick, editor of the Report and a Hastings Center Research Scholar. "Wiley-Blackwell will broaden the Report's reach and allow us to improve our service to authors and readers, but the Hastings Center will maintain its identity and control of its journals."

"We have long admired the work of the Hastings Center and very much look forward to building our publishing partnership with this esteemed bioethics research institution," Philip Carpenter, Vice-President and Managing Director for Social Sciences and Humanities at Wiley-Blackwell, said. "The Hastings Center Report is a perfect complement to our list of journals in bioethics, ethics, applied philosophy and medicine, and we look forward to making our many resources available to the Center in support of its mission to address critically important ethical issues in the communities it serves."

The Report will be included in the Wiley-Blackwell Collection, making it available in 3300 libraries globally that do not currently subscribe to the Report. The January/February 2012 issue will be the first in the new partnership.

Electronic distribution of the Report will be provided by the Wiley Online Library, a state-of-the-art online content delivery platform that will provide new tools for Report readers, such as Early View, which allows access to accepted articles before they have been bound into an issue of the Report, and "Virtual Issues," which collects articles and other content that bear on a subject .

Wiley Online Library will also allow the Report to be integrated more closely with Bioethics Forum, the Center's online blog.