Publisherspeak
UK 2024

Louise has over 25 years of experience in the scholarly communications sector spanning editorial,  product/digital, and senior leadership roles. In her current role as Director of Tutton Russell Consulting, Louise provides specialist consultancy to publishers, societies, universities, and vendors internationally. In an evolving and increasingly dynamic landscape Louise brings an external perspective – supporting organisations as they explore new products and business models, review current processes, operations and commercial arrangements, and refocus their strategy for the future.

Sholto David holds a Ph.D. in cellular and molecular biology from Newcastle University in England. With a dedication to maintaining and promoting scientific integrity, Dr. David has cultivated an expertise in identifying errors in scientific publications. His impactful contributions to scholarly publishing have earned him recognition in leading publications like The Guardian and The New York Times. Sholto is the Keynote Speaker for Publisherspeak UK 2024.

Alex Miller is the Founder and CEO of Forestreet, an AI-driven market research platform.  Prior to founding Forestreet Alex was COO at Octopus Investments, and formerly Director of Strategy and Operations for Lloyds Banking Group.  He is passionate about transformational technologies and an authority in the practical application of AI.

Sophia chairs the breakout session focused on research integrity.  

Publishers are spending an increasing amount of time investigating and tackling research integrity allegations. There have always been bad actors on the scene but are pressures to publish and new opportunities increasing this number? Or are we now in a better place to have tools to detect malpractice? Paper mills, image manipulation, fabricated data, plagiarism – what can we do to be sure that we are publishing legitimate, accurate and unique research that scholars can rely on? And what do we do when we discover we’ve published fraudulent work?

Caroline chairs the breakout session focused on interoperability. 

Interoperability plays an increasingly important role in scholarly publishing - particularly in an Open Access world - by promoting accessibility, collaboration, discoverability, efficiency and data integration across the scholarly ecosystem. It fosters a more open, transparent, and interconnected research environment that aims to benefit researchers, institutions, funders, publishers and society as a whole. However, publishers face significant challenges, including outdated legacy systems, competing priorities and resource constraints. To address these obstacles effectively, we must collaborate closely to develop practical solutions. What are our biggest challenges?  How effective is collaboration between publishers, researchers, institutions, standards bodies, and technology providers? And what support do we need to be successful?

Emily chairs the breakout session focused on sustainability. 

We all face a balancing act in our decision-making processes throughout the lifecycle of our content – time, cost, quality, speed, flexibility. Does sustainability feel like another burden on the list? Or can we take the global climate emergency challenges and find sustainable opportunities for our organisations and the wider publishing industry. Emily Cockburn, Content and Supply Chain Operations Director for Cambridge University Press and Assessment’s Academic publishing business, will chair this session and share her experiences in working to reduce their carbon emissions impacts. We will think about the breadth of what sustainability means, framed with the UN’s 17 Sustainability Development Goals, but expect to focus on how we manage our environmental impacts.

Joe chairs the breakout session focused on research communities.  

Society publishers are more than ever faced by a series of challenges in trying to attract authors and build up the research communities that will sustain publishing operations in the coming years. A successful research community requires engaged stakeholders throughout the publishing process from authors, to reviewers, and eventually editors but how can publisher demonstrate value to these stakeholders and ensure they remain engaged in a competitive environment? Given the role that both funding and research evaluation play in determining where and what researchers publish we also consider how as publishers we can work to meet the needs of our community of researchers. For example, within the UK context 50% of the 2028 Research Excellence Framework will focus on areas such as career progression, equality diversity and inclusion, as well as societal impact of research alongside more traditional assessments of the quality of published research. Is there an opportunity for publishers to contribute to these other areas and help foster research communities, and how do bring early career researchers into the publishing ecosystem?