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DESCRIPTION Westchester Education Services provides a comprehensive range of services for educational publishers and EdTech companies, including art, design, production, ELT programme development, bilingual education, and translation.


ACADEMIC, EDUCATIONAL & PROFESSIONAL PUBLISHER OF THE YEAR


OVERVIEW It was another turbulent year across much of these three sectors, with a squeeze in library budgets and the twin migrations towards digital content and Open Access keeping everyone on their toes. But these six shortlisted companies showed that publishers are responding well to tough market conditions. With resolute focus on their subject areas, distinctive personality in their publishing and bold strategies in international markets, they showed how the UK still sets the global standards for academic, educational and professional publishing.


BLOOMSBURY Bloomsbury is now into a second decade with its Academic & Professional division, a powerhouse that has built up more than 30,000 titles. Last year saw it add to its stack of subject-specific imprints with the acquisition of theatre publisher Oberon, but its organic growth was way ahead of the general market, too. The Bloomsbury Digital Resources division started to repay the investment as it moved into profit, and the business pushed deeper into Asian markets with the launch of a Beijing office.


CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge University Press is shortlisted for this award for the very first time at this year’s Nibbies. With nearly 500 years of history, it is the world’s oldest publishing house, but 2019 showed it to be a forward- thinking one too, with the launch of new audiobook and podcast programmes, and a digital-first academic publishing venture called Cambridge Elements. It grasped the Open Access nettle and made an impact in trade channels with Mike Berners-Lee’s There is No Planet B, a practical yet academically solid climate change guide.


LAST YEAR’S WINNER


EMERALD Emerald is the current holder of this award, and would appear to have more than a decent shout of retaining its crown: it built on a stellar year with more double-digit growth in book sales and record profits in 2019. It bedded down an Open Access programme too, launched a new Emerald Insight platform for academic libraries and ramped up its marketing and publicity campaigns. It also set benchmarks for inclusivity, with new flexible working practices and its first ever Emerald Pride Week.


KOGAN PAGE Kogan Page is shortlisted for this Nibbie for the third year in a row, and like all of these publishers, it carved out new routes to readers last year. Highlights included hikes in e-book, US and UK online sales, plus rich pickings from its huge backlist. Fifty-plus years of leadership from Philip Kogan, and now his daugher, Helen Kogan, has helped the publisher to develop very close ties to authors, partners and buyers. “To be published by Kogan Page is to become part of a family,” said one author on its roster.


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COLLINS Collins has made the shortlist in eight of the nine years of this award—testament to both its consistency of publishing and its steady accumulation of market share. It bucked the trend in the tricky schools sector once more in 2019, and its Big Cat primary reading scheme was particularly successful across China and in the Middle East markets, as well as in the UK. Outside schools, there was a jump in sales of its titles through consumer channels. It won last year’s Export Nibbie; departing m.d. Colin Hughes collected the gong at LBF.


JESSICA KINGSLEY PUBLISHERS Jessica Kingsley Publishers has thrived since its acquisition by Hachette UK in 2017, preserving its mission-driven character after the end of 30 years of inde- pendence under its eponymous founder, who was succeeded by Sanphy Thomas. Hachette has given it more international and digital clout, and sales hit record levels on both fronts in 2019. Its social and mental sciences titles got more traction in trade and audio channels as well, and it made good on a pledge to increase the diversity of its children’s books.


MIKE BERNERS-LEES CLIMATE CHANGE TITLE


WAS A HIT FOR CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS


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