Company History

Founded in 1988 by an academician, Dr. Mehdi Khosrow-Pour, IGI Global was fostered from the belief that all research, no matter how unrecognized, contributed significantly to the advancement of knowledge and thus, needed to be published. Most major academic publishing houses at that time were not interested in investing in small-run monographs that emphasized discipline areas that were not yet established. Unlike the rest of the publishing industry, IGI Global actively sought out these concepts, centered on the most emerging topics and technologies, choosing to take a chance on publications that were not initially profitable because they were so ahead of their time.

Starting with a focus on information science and technology, IGI Global quickly established itself as a publisher who was not afraid to put the research community above profit and decided early on to never turn away prospective publications because it felt there was not going to be enough “margins”. With this mindset, IGI Global began to collaborate with world-renowned researchers to uncover some of the most innovative and presently untapped research discoveries available.

Due to the quick pace at which these discoveries were being made, IGI Global streamlined its publishing process to focus on a quality-centric, expeditious process that could not only stay abreast of the rapidly advancing field of information technology management, but also swiftly disseminate the research findings to the academic community. Understanding the importance of serving only accurate, vetted research, IGI Global utilized its own technological advancements such as the proprietary editorial management system known as the “eEditorial Discovery system” to maintain its agility, thus accomplishing this task without sacrificing its extensive double-anonymized peer-review process. Today, an accepted publication proposal can be offered as a final, properly vetted publication in approximately one year.

As the demands of the research community continuously evolved and constantly shifted due to the fast rate at which content could now be produced, IGI Global grew and changed to meet these needs. During the past decade, other research disciplines were explored and introduced so that IGI Global could have a strong representation in areas such as business and management, education, engineering, environment and agriculture, government and law, media and communications, healthcare, security, the social sciences, and most recently, the humanities.

As electronic resources became popular within university libraries, IGI Global quickly became a pioneer among publishers by offering every title in both print and electronic formats. In 2006, IGI Global launched its e-Book and e-Journal Collections, hosting IGI Global’s entire collection of e-books, e-journals, and videos on one user-friendly platform. The e-Book and e-Journal Collections offer affordable options for librarians to acquire large collections of content that’s easily accessed and utilized by their patrons. To date, thousands of libraries utilize the InfoSci^® platform’s modern interface, and 65% of the top universities are acquiring e-books and e-journals directly on this platform.

As part of IGI Global’s effort to make academic content more easily accessible and affordable, IGI Global reduced the pricing for its e-Books and e-Journal Collections, instead offering a very simple and transparent pricing structure that provide institutions of every size and in any economic environment the opportunity to access the most cutting-edge research at a reasonable cost. Under this new pricing structure, librarians can simply select options such as a subscription or perpetual purchase of IGI Global’s e-Collections without any additional hidden fees such as archiving, maintenance, etc. In addition, IGI Global provides a full guarantee that prices will not increase by more than 5% annually. With absolutely no maintenance fees, institution-wide unlimited simultaneous access, full-text PDF and XML, and no DRM, these collections offer some of the most flexible and customizable electronic resource options in the market.

Today, IGI Global continues its policy of providing excellent service through the personalized support and assistance offered to each of its contributors. During the past 30 years, IGI Global has been extremely instrumental in providing researchers all over the world the opportunity to publish their work with a credible and trusted publisher. It continues to maintain its philosophy of publishing content based on the innovative nature and quality presented in the work as opposed to focusing purely on profitability. When other larger publishing houses are maintaining criteria solely based on the popularity and profitability of the content, IGI Global is instead focused on providing its authors and editors an outlet to share their research findings with the rest of the world. As a result, IGI Global continues to publish some of the most innovative forward-thinking (and at times very niche) content that has greatly progressed the research field, even if it was left with very little revenue in return. Additionally, through partnering with industry-leading experts from top-tier institutions (i.e. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, Stanford University, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, Tsinghua University, Australian National University, and more), IGI Global has been able to assist in changing the research landscape and disseminate knowledge that has sparked societal change.

Its continued commitment to maintaining a positive image and providing only the highest quality content has also established IGI Global as a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) due to its strict adherence to ethical publishing. All of these principles continue to support IGI Global’s mission of being a top knowledge disseminator and partner of research and library communities around the world as it expands the body of knowledge in different academic disciplines and fuels both societal and technological advancements.