Taking a Researcher-Centric Approach

In 2014, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced its Open Access Policy to accelerate the impact of its funded research. ChronosHub was built in 2016 to encourage adoption of the policy, reduce complexity, and minimize manual work. While initially built for the Gates Foundation, ChronosHub was re-designed to scale to the broader research community to simplify implementation of publishing policies for research and address the grantees’ concerns about additional workload. ChronosHub takes a collaborative approach to support all scholarly communication stakeholders throughout the publishing process. Since the launch in 2017, ChronosHub is managing over +230,000 licensed users and +150,000 articles with more than over $10 million in article processing charges (APCs) per year.

In a transformative move during 2023, ChronosHub found a new home within the American Chemical Society family. This strategic acquisition by ACS, an ardent supporter of authors and open science, aims to enhance the author experience from manuscript to publication, creating an innovative publishing platform. By leveraging ChronosHub's tech and expertise, the plan continues to reduce researchers' admin workload, enabling more impactful research. The decision aligns with the shared goal of providing an exceptional author experience and improving product offerings.

Research is fundamental to humanity, but the world of academic publishing is getting more and more complex. Researchers spend up to 35% of their time on administration, funders struggle with compliance management, institutions lack transparency, and publishers are challenged by new business models. The market for research publication is currently being transformed by an increase in Open Access and Open Science, and there are more than eight million researchers eligible for the trillion of dollars granted to research every year, so the potential impact is huge. More than three million journal articles were published in 2019 – that’s 8,000 per day, and $750 million paid in Article Processing Charges (APCs). A number that’s expected to double in the coming years.

At ChronosHub, there’s a thought behind everything – and our company name is no exception.

In fact, the meaning behind it is dual.

‘Chronos’, as is the name of the primeval Greek god of time, because of our dedicated focus on delivering time-saving, time-effective solutions.

‘Hub’ because we act as a central element in connecting all players in the research ecosystem.