Academic Digital Research Services start-up colwiz joins Taylor & Francis Group

Taylor & Francis Group, a leading publisher of specialist, upper-level academic books and journals, has acquired colwiz, an innovative, early stage digital research services firm, as part of its ongoing investment in technology and digital capabilities that support the use and discoverability of content.

colwiz launched in 2013 from the University of Oxford’s Isis Software Incubator. It provides interactive digital collaboration and reference management services for researchers in academia, industry and government around the world.

colwiz’s current suite of tools allows researchers to read and annotate PDF-based academic content wherever they are, manage and store research drafts, share citations and data and connect and collaborate within research groups around specialist content in an efficient and user-friendly way.

As part of the Taylor & Francis Group, the team from colwiz will in the first instance work on the launch of wizdom.ai, a cutting-edge and comprehensive proprietary research knowledge graph. wizdom.ai uses artificial intelligence and big data to generate continuously-updated analytics on scientific developments, delivering new insights into academic knowledge to inform how researchers advance their work.

Ian Bannerman, Journals Managing Director at Taylor & Francis Group, commented, “We’ve enjoyed a close working relationship with colwiz since bringing its interactive PDF reader to our journals platform in 2013. Both companies share a common interest in services that optimise how digital content is discovered and used, to generate maximum value for the academic community.

“We’re excited about the capabilities and talent this investment in colwiz brings to our Group, and look forward to exploring how insights and data from its new suite of services can help to inform research institutions around the world. As internal customers of these tools, wizdom.ai will also provide analysis to guide our own publishing strategy.”

With this development, Tahir Mansoori, CEO & Founder and the colwiz team of data scientists, engineers and designers will join Taylor & Francis.

Tahir Mansoori said, “This marks the next chapter in the colwiz story. We are pleased to be joining a company that’s committed to publishing high quality specialist content and to innovating, through technology and partnerships, to make research as usable, discoverable and ultimately as valuable as possible.”

Financial terms are not being disclosed.

About colwiz, Ltd.

colwiz (collective wizdom) is a research management, collaboration and productivity platform for individual researchers, groups, departments and organizations. Utilizing web, desktop, and mobile applications synched in real time, the platform manages the entire research lifecycle from an initial idea, through a complex collaboration, to publication of the results. The company was founded by leading researchers from the University of Oxford.

For more information about colwiz, visit www.colwiz.com.

About Taylor & Francis Group:

Taylor & Francis Group partners with researchers, scholarly societies, universities and libraries worldwide to bring knowledge to life. As one of the world's leading publishers of scholarly journals, books, ebooks and reference works our content spans all areas of Humanities, Social Sciences, Behavioural Sciences, Science and Technology.

From our network of offices in Oxford, New York, Philadelphia, Boca Raton, Boston, Melbourne, Singapore, Beijing, Tokyo, Stockholm, New Delhi and Johannesburg, Taylor & Francis staff provide local expertise and support to our editors, societies and authors and tailored, efficient customer service to our library colleagues.

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Jennifer McMillan, Director of Marketing, Content & Communications
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