Largest academic publishers in Asia in 2025

7 Largest Academic Publishers in Asia in 2025

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Asia is no longer the silent partner in global academic publishing. It is a continent of rising giants, fast digitization, and publishing infrastructure that increasingly challenges Western dominance. Once dismissed as peripheral, Asia now hosts some of the world’s most prolific academic publishers, from China’s sprawling state-owned presses to Japan’s technologically sophisticated platforms. As universities across the region climb international rankings, the demand for localized, high-impact publishing has grown in parallel.

The term “largest” can be contentious. For this list, we consider the scale in terms of journal and book output, market influence, international partnerships, and integration into global scholarly indexes like Scopus, Web of Science, and DOAJ. We also consider how these publishers are positioning themselves amid global shifts—open access mandates, AI-assisted workflows, and metadata-driven discoverability.

The Asian publishing market isn’t monolithic. It’s a mosaic of government-backed institutions, entrepreneurial ventures, and university presses, all navigating linguistic diversity, political mandates, and the persistent prestige economy. As of 2025, these are seven of the biggest academic publishing players rewriting the rules in Asia.

1. China Science Publishing & Media (CSPM), China

CSPM remains the juggernaut of Chinese academic publishing, with deep roots in scientific dissemination. As the publishing division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), CSPM is not just large in scale—it is embedded in the nation’s scientific establishment. Its catalog spans physics, biology, chemistry, earth sciences, and engineering, with more than 400 journals under its belt.

CSPM’s transformation is driven by two major factors: internationalization and AI. It has expanded its English-language publishing and co-published several journals with major international houses like Elsevier (via KeAi). The Science China series is a respected, widely cited STEM journal.

CSPM also plays a significant role in China’s push for research sovereignty. By creating domestic alternatives to Western databases and hosting infrastructure on local servers, it ensures strategic autonomy in scholarly communications. Scale, prestige, and policy alignment make CSPM the quintessential Chinese academic publishing machine.

2. Higher Education Press (HEP), China

HEP is China’s textbook behemoth, supplying instructional material to thousands of institutions. But beyond its curricular dominance, HEP is a powerful academic journal publisher. With more than 300 active journals in engineering, social sciences, and medicine, it occupies a unique position: it sits at the intersection of pedagogy and research dissemination.

HEP’s scale is astonishing. It prints over 500,000 textbook titles a year and services over 2,000 universities. On the journal front, it has launched several bilingual and English-only journals to align with the Chinese government’s emphasis on research visibility. Its editorial policies are increasingly informed by international peer review norms and publication ethics frameworks.

One of HEP’s key moves in recent years has been its adoption of Diamond open access for university-affiliated journals, with full APC waivers funded by state education budgets. While the Western press grapples with the affordability crisis, HEP is quietly building an open access infrastructure rooted in central planning. It may not yet have the international prestige of a Springer or Elsevier, but HEP is publishing at a scale that most Western presses can only dream of.

3. World Scientific Publishing, Singapore

World Scientific is Asia’s largest independent English-language academic publisher, and remains one of the few truly global firms with Asian roots. It publishes over 140 journals and 600 books annually, covering physics, economics, mathematics, engineering, and business. What it lacks in public subsidy, it compensates for with entrepreneurial agility.

What makes World Scientific unique is its hybrid model: rigorous peer-reviewed publishing paired with market responsiveness. The company is aggresively exploring and investing in machine-readable metadata, automated indexing, and full XML-first production pipelines. Its journal Modern Physics Letters continues to attract high citation scores, and its business titles are increasingly used as reference material in MBA programs across Asia.

4. Springer Nature Asia, Regional

Although Springer Nature is headquartered in Europe, its Asian arms—particularly in China and Japan—have grown into major publishing centers in their own right. Springer China now co-publishes more than 100 journals with local universities, while Nature Japan supports local editions, translation rights, and research events.

The success of these regional operations is not incidental. Springer Nature has localized its editorial operations in Asia, hiring regional editors and establishing content pipelines tailored to local academic ecosystems. The popular Asia-Pacific Journal of Oncology and Nature Reviews Disease Primers see high submission rates from Asian researchers.

Springer Nature Asia leads in pushing for open access in compliance with Plan S-aligned national mandates. Several Springer journals are part of transformative agreements with national libraries and academic consortia in Japan, Korea, and China. The regional offices are also exploring partnerships with AI startups for automated peer review, enhancing speed without compromising quality.

5. Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI), South Korea

KISTI isn’t a conventional commercial publisher—it’s a national research institute with a strong publishing division. Its flagship platform, KPubS, hosts over 900 academic and scientific journals published by Korean academic societies. These range from niche biomedical titles to internationally cited engineering publications.

What sets KISTI apart is its commitment to infrastructure over revenue. Today, more than half of its hosted journals are open access, with full-text XML, DOI integration, and multilingual metadata. It also supports editors with free DOI registration, journal management systems, and training in ethical standards.

KISTI has also launched a preprint platform—KOpenPreprint—which is gaining popularity among Korean researchers tired of long publishing delays. While its international presence is modest, KISTI is laying the foundation for a sovereign and sustainable Korean academic publishing ecosystem, increasingly decoupled from commercial dependence.

6. Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Japan

JST is Japan’s national coordinator of scientific research funding and innovation policy, but its impact on academic publishing is equally profound. Through the J-STAGE platform, JST supports more than 3,000 academic journals and conference proceedings from across Japan’s scientific and technical societies.

Unlike traditional publishers, JST provides the infrastructure: hosting, indexing, DOI assignment, and archiving. J-STAGE journals are predominantly open access, and the platform is undergoing a massive upgrade to support ORCID integration, open peer review, and Altmetric tracking.

JST’s success lies in its ecosystemic thinking. Rather than competing with commercial publishers, it enables hundreds of small publishers to operate efficiently. The result is a diverse publishing landscape that preserves editorial independence while ensuring discoverability. Many journals now offer English versions of abstracts and metadata, helping to bridge the language gap with the international community.

7. Medknow Publications, India

Medknow started as a homegrown Indian open access publisher but now functions as Wolters Kluwer’s South Asian arm. Specializing in healthcare and life sciences, Medknow publishes more than 400 journals, many on behalf of regional medical societies and academic institutions.

Despite past controversies around quality assurance, Medknow has cleaned up its act. Today, it uses centralized editorial platforms, plagiarism detection tools, and improved peer review workflows. Its journals are indexed in Scopus and PubMed, and many now carry impact factors.

Medknow offers low-cost APCs, editorial support in local languages, and distribution across Wolters Kluwer’s global network. Its blend of regional specificity and international reach is helping Indian researchers publish globally while staying rooted in local contexts.

Conclusion

Asia’s academic publishing scene is complex, ambitious, and increasingly global in scope. It houses government-owned megafirms, entrepreneurial ventures, and hybrid platforms that blur the lines between publisher, aggregator, and indexer. These publishers serve not just domestic markets, but increasingly contribute to the international research landscape.

What emerges from this list is a spectrum of models—centralized state publishing, university-led missions, for-profit operations, and infrastructural cooperatives—all operating in parallel. They reflect the diversity of Asia itself: multilinguistic, economically varied, and politically nuanced. But they also signal a convergence of global trends: open access, AI-powered workflows, and metadata-driven visibility.

The West may still lead in prestige, but Asia is setting the pace in volume, innovation, and public-access infrastructure. These seven publishers are not just large—they are vital nodes in the emerging global knowledge ecosystem.

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