Publisher secures milestone global university contract

A specialist digital publisher, which is backed by Finance Yorkshire, has secured its 100th university online library contract worldwide.

Yorkshire-based Greenleaf Publishing specialises in books and journals on sustainability and responsible business, which are aimed at MBA and management students, researchers, tutors and business consultants.

Its latest customer, the Sino-British College (SBC), part of the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology (USST) in China, joins Cambridge, Yale, London Business School, Monash in Australia and Copenhagen Business School in making Greenleaf’s online libraries available to students and researchers.

Greenleaf also works with several Yorkshire-based university libraries including Leeds Beckett, Bradford, Sheffield, Hull and Huddersfield.

Professor John Wilson, Dean of the Sino-British College at USST said: “The Greenleaf Sustainable Organization Library is a unique and invaluable resource from which students and all my colleagues at SBC and the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology can benefit, and to which I hope we can contribute. We are particularly pleased to be the 100th customer and I would like to congratulate Greenleaf on reaching this milestone globally.”

Greenleaf and its parent company GSE Research have been supported by investment from Finance Yorkshire since 2011. The business employs 12 people in its Leeds office and two in Sheffield, with a network of agents and affiliates worldwide.

Chief Executive John Peters said: “We are thrilled to have our 100th customer in China, which is an increasingly important driver of world business. There are about 1,000 major universities worldwide, so reaching 100 university customers is a big landmark for us. Responsible management education is a major area of growth, and most people in industry and government now seem to get the message that responsible business is good business, and that growth and prosperity can be done sustainably.”

Finance Yorkshire Portfolio Director Ian Brown said: “Since we first invested in GSE Research four years ago, the business has made great strides. The publishing industry can be slow to adapt but John and his team have transformed the way that universities access the latest insight and research. We are very optimistic about its future growth prospects.”

To date, Finance Yorkshire’s investments have enabled companies to increase their turnover by £352 million and attract a further £187 million from other private sector sources. And through that activity, Finance Yorkshire investment has helped those SMEs to create and safeguard more than 10,600 jobs in Yorkshire and the Humber.

Finance Yorkshire provides seedcorn, loan and equity linked investments, ranging from £15,000 to £2m to help a range of small and medium sized businesses to meet their funding requirements for growth and development.

The project is supported financially by the European Union and attracts investment from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), as part of Europe’s support for the region’s economic development through the Yorkshire and Humber ERDF Programme, UK Government and the European Investment Bank. Finance Yorkshire is also supported by the Regional Growth Fund.

For more information about Finance Yorkshire, please visit www.finance-yorkshire.com or call 0300 030 6060.

Note: this news article is from Finance Yorkshire’s previous fund. Read more about Finance Yorkshire