Wiley Life Sciences Publishers Share Insights on publication

On November 21, 2025, Beihang University (BUAA) hosted a high-level seminar on scientific research publishing. Professor Fangfang Cao from the School of Engineering Medicine invited two Publishing Managers for Life Sciences Journals from Wiley, a leading international academic publisher, Ms. Jiahui Diao (Daisy Diao) and Ms. Wenhua Shen (Florence Shen). They delivered an insightful session on “From Research to Publication and Impact Enhancement: Wiley’s Pathway to Empowering Research Advancement—Journal Selection, Paper Quality Improvement, and Editor Recruitment & Development” for faculty and students from BUAA’s School of Engineering Medicine, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, and other schools.

Ms. Daisy Diao first disclosed big data on BUAA’s research output from 2015 to 2025: over the past decade, a total of 87,568 SCI papers were published, accumulating 1.72 million citations with an average of 19.59 citations per paper; 48,463 patent applications were filed, and 17,660 public datasets were released. Disciplines characteristic of BUAA, such as Aerospace, Materials Science, Physics, Sensing & Instrumentation, and Energy, showed particularly strong performance. Journals like IEEE Access, Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, and Physical Review D were among the top 10 most frequently published-in journals for BUAA scholars. BUAA authors are also very active in Wiley journals—flagship journals like Advanced Functional Materials, Advanced Materials, and Small have collectively published over 1,700 papers from BUAA authors, with 249 papers in 2024 alone, representing an 18% year-on-year increase. Notably, Wiley has become the first global educational partner of Perplexity and, in collaboration with AWS, launched a generative AI agent for scientific literature. This will allow BUAA faculty and students direct access to Wiley’s authoritative content on the AWS platform in the future, accelerating the cross-pollination of research ideas.

Ms. Florence Shen, deconstructed the logic of writing high-quality papers from a “reviewer’s perspective.” She pointed out that reviewers primarily focus on “Journal Fit + Innovation + Data Reliability,” followed by writing logic and ethical compliance. Addressing the common pain point of “rejection,” Ms. Shen proposed a “Three-Step Damage Control Method”: ① Utilize Wiley Journal Finder for immediate resubmission; ② Address each reviewer comment point-by-point and provide a marked-up manuscript showing changes; ③ In case of significant disagreement, consider submitting a rebuttal letter with peer support, but ensure it is “reasonable, evidence-based, and polite.” She also demonstrated Wiley’s “Free Format Submission” system live, which allows authors to submit without spending time formatting, saving significant preparation time—a feature highly appreciated by the attending faculty and students.

During the Q&A session, the two publishers engaged in in-depth discussions with faculty and students on topics including paper submission, responding to reviewer comments, journal selection, and academic career development, creating a lively atmosphere.

Speaker Biographies

Jiahui Diao (Daisy Diao) graduated from The Chinese University of Hong Kong and previously served as a book editor. Since joining the Wiley publishing group in 2019, she has worked with the “Advanced” and “Small” journal families, as well as collaborative materials science journals in China. She currently manages the publishing operations for over ten journals in microbiology and food science, while also providing key support for the strategic development of more than 400 Wiley Life Sciences journals in the Chinese market.

Wenhua Shen (Florence Shen) graduated from Yanshan University and previously worked at Springer Nature as a Commissioning Editor, responsible for special issue development for Nature portfolio journals. She is currently primarily responsible for the publishing operations of Wiley journals in Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, and Ecology, and also collaborates on the planning and implementation of the strategic development for Wiley Life Sciences in the Chinese market.