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This question might be more suitable for a law forum, but I thought somebody may be able to share their experience.

Can the editors of a research journal unilaterally decide to move their journal to a different publisher, and keep the journal’s name?

I’m aware of cases where the editors resigned and started a new journal with a slightly different name, while the publisher kept publishing a journal with the old name; this scenario does not answer my question.

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  • $\begingroup$ This is really a legal question, and depends on who "owns" the journal and whether or not they consent to the move. $\endgroup$
    – Andy Putman
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 19:04
  • $\begingroup$ Isn't this what happened with IMRN? $\endgroup$
    – Dan Fox
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 20:01
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    $\begingroup$ To expand slightly on Andy Putnam's comment, you ask if "the EDITORS of a research journal may unilaterally move...". The fact is that "the OWNER(S) of a research journal may unilaterally move..." So the answer to your question is "No" unless the editors are also the owners. This is seldom the case, I suspect, since editorial boards of journals tend to be fairly large, and have a fair amount of turnover. On the other hand, there may well be journals that are owned by their managing editors, which tends to be a much smaller group. $\endgroup$
    – Joe Silverman
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 22:12

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Q: Can editors move a journal to a different publisher?
A: Only if they represent the owner of the journal (a foundation or university). If the publisher owns the journal it is unlikely they will agree to a move, which will not prevent a fresh start under a (slightly) different name.

A few case studies are discussed in the 2012 Notices of the AMS.

  • Compositio Mathematica was published by Kluwer, but owned by a separate foundation, which chose to move to Cambridge UP.
  • Topology is owned by Elsevier, so it had to change name becoming Journal of Topology, when the editorial board chose to move to Oxford UP.
  • Mathematika is owned by University College London, which moved to Cambridge UP with help of the London Mathematical Society.
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This is not exactly the same as the editors of a journal changing the publisher of a journal, but let me put in a plug for "flipping" a journal to Open Access. This is where the editors of a journal (which is presumably published by some for-profit publisher) all simultaneously quit in order to found a new open access journal with the same scope, same editorial team, and similar name to the old one.

Some recent examples I know of this happening in math -- and specifically, combinatorics -- are:

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I do not know all legal aspects, and suppose that the other answers are correct: this is decided by the owner, not by the editors. But this frequently happened with the journals I collaborated with. For example, Computational Methods and Function theory was published by a small independent publisher, and then they moved to Springer. I was on the editorial board, but they never asked my opinion, just informed me about the fact. I resigned.

Acta Mathematica once also moved to Springer. I was considering withdrawing my accepted paper, but did not: it was already too late. I think that since then they moved back.

Journal d'Analyse moved to Springer at some time, but they explained that Springer only does distribution, not actual publishing (I do not know all legal details).

Journal "Mathematical Physics, Analysis and Geometry", where I was on the editorial board, started with Elsevier, ignoring my objections. Few years later they discovered that I was right and decided to move away from Elsevier. Elsevier had some legal objections. The result was the split into two journals: one under the old name published by Elsevier, and a new one which changed the name to "Journal of Mathematical physics, Analysis and Geometry". The editorial board also split into two disjoint subsets.

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The Mathematical Association of America moved all of its journals to a new publisher (Taylor and Francis) a few years ago. So: this was done by the owner (MAA) not the editors, per se.

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    $\begingroup$ I wish I knew what prompted the MAA to sell all of its back issues to Taylor & Francis (and its books to the AMS). $\endgroup$
    – Daniel Asimov
    Commented Apr 1, 2023 at 21:31
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    $\begingroup$ @DanielAsimov I know more about this than I want to, but just wanted to point out that the issues of the MAA journals through 2019 are still on JSTOR (in addition to Taylor & Francis). $\endgroup$
    – Brian Hopkins
    Commented Apr 3, 2023 at 2:12

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