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Jisc welcomes 100th UK institution to ORCID consortium 

Jisc has welcomed Bangor University as the 100th UK institution to join the international ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) consortium.  

ORCID is an open, non-profit, community-based organisation that provides a hub to connect researchers with institutional, funder, publisher, and other researcher identifier (the unique number given to every researcher which can be attributed to all their work) systems.  

Through the consortium, members are provided with guidance to automate the movement of research information between internal and external systems.  

The UK research community, under the stewardship of Jisc, has led the way in ORCID adoption and continues to be the gold standard in ORCID consortium support. 

This milestone highlights the mass adoption of ORCID, with over 14 million ORCID IDs issued worldwide, more than 200 thousand of which are based in the UK.  

Liam Earney, managing director HE and research, and executive director of digital resources at Jisc said: 

“As the founding member of the UK ORCID consortium, established in 2015, we are delighted to reach the milestone of 100 member institutions. Jisc is proud to support persistent identifiers that are essential to open and trusted research.” 

Michelle Walker, repository and research data manager at Bangor University said: 

“Bangor University has joined the Jisc ORCID consortium to improve the interconnectedness of the systems our academics use, to improve data quality and overall take steps towards greater automation of data transfer.  

“Our aim is to reduce the administrative burdens on our academics wherever possible. ORCID offers our academics a unique identifier for accurate affiliation from a not-for-profit community initiative.” 

Ivo Wijnbergen, director of engagement at ORCID said. 

“ORCID consortia are communities of practice that can share knowledge through pooled resources, which drive ORCID community adoption and in turn help ensure that researchers are connected to their contributions across disciplines, borders, and time.  

“We congratulate the UK ORCID consortium on reaching the milestone of 100 members. With Jisc’s support, the high level of ORCID participation in the UK higher education sector enables best practices to be shared among institutions and value to be maximised for both the national and international scholarly communities.”   

As well as a discount on membership, the ORCID consortium gives access to community events and allows members to reach out to Jisc or fellow organisations for training and engagement materials. 

For more information on the Jisc ORCID consortium, visit our website. 

Announcing the World’s First Curation of Scientific Conference Presentations: Underline Science, Streaming the World’s Best Science

Underline Science Curating Scientific Conferences

We created Underline Science in 2019 with a specific vision of curating scientific conference presentations into a streaming video platform. Our founder, Alex Lazinica an AI/robotics researcher, and our experienced team understood it is impossible for researchers to be at every important conference, let alone attend every important presentation at the conferences they are able to be at in person. The solution, an academic-ready video platform with the search and browse experience of a consumer streaming video platform, like Netflix, but with the attributes of a scholarly research platform. And then a global pandemic struck and the world shut down in person events overnight.

At Underline we had already built the infrastructure to support video capture at in-person events, so a pivot to supporting the overnight demand for virtual events was a contribution to the scholarly research process we knew we must make. Fast forward two and a half years and we have supported hundreds of events, captured tens of thousands of presentations and, today, we are proud to announce the launch of our Underline Science Library Product: https://underline.io/library

In addition to the exceptional streaming content that we have captured at the events we have supported; we have invited academic and scholarly societies to add their conference content to our platform. Our partners include IEEE, MIT, AIP, The Peer Review Congress, and many more. The Underline Science Library Product includes more than 25,000 presentations and we are adding new conference content constantly.

The Underline Science Library Product offers a truly academic viewing experience; this is no YouTube! Our presentations feature searchable transcripts, citation tools, linked DOIs, abstracts, linked proceeding papers and posters, and a forum for ongoing discussion and collaboration between presenters and fellow researchers. Take a look at what we mean by a academic video player and experience: https://underline.io/lecture/14096-big-data-and-health

We are only just beginning! Please reach out to our team to learn more about Underline Science and our commitment to streaming the world’s best science!

Scholastica announces integration with Altmetric Badges for its OA Publishing Platform

Scholastica, a leading software solutions provider for academic journals, announced today that its open access publishing platform now includes an Altmetric Badge integration option to help journals, their authors, and readers track alternative impact indicators for articles.

Journals subscribed to Scholastica’s open access publishing platform with a paid Altmetric account can enable the new integration to have Altmetric Badges automatically displayed on the public metrics page for all the articles they publish via Scholastica. Each Altmetric Badge links to an Altmetric details page that features a breakdown of online attention received by the article.

​​The new Altmetric Badge integration is part of Scholastica’s ongoing efforts to empower small and medium academy journal publishers to produce and disseminate top-quality research more efficiently and affordably than traditional publishing software and partner options, so they can further their scholarly missions.

“We’re excited to make it easier for journal publishers of all sizes to easily understand and share the impact of their Open Access articles on their Scholastica-hosted websites with authors, editors, and researchers,” said Scholastica CEO and Co-Founder Brian Cody.

As alternative impact indicators have become more prevalent in academia, Altmetric Badges have become widely used across disciplines. Altmetric Badges enable journal publishers, their editors, authors, and readers to monitor and report on diverse research impacts beyond traditional bibliometric citations to capture the attention surrounding articles.

“Altmetric are delighted to partner with Scholastica. Our Altmetric Badges are designed to provide a visual representation of online attention that complements traditional bibliometrics. Users can click on Altmetric Badges for a record of online attention, indicating how the research is being received across news, policy outlets, blogs, and many other valuable scholarly and non-scholarly sources,” said Altmetric CEO Kathy Christian.

To use the Altmetric Badge integration, journals must first be subscribed to Scholastica’s Open Access Publishing Platform and have an active, paid Altmetric account. Those that meet both criteria can follow the steps in this help document to enable the integration.

Top Publisher Shares Benchmarks on OA Progress

The transition to open access is the driving force in research today. Publishers have an important role to play in ensuring that all findings are widely accessible from the moment they are published to better enable solutions to real-world problems – of which there are no shortage. With higher demand for peer-reviewed research fueled by the pandemic, the climate crisis, and other issues threatening public health and wellbeing, Wiley is proud to deliver more research more openly than ever before.

As we celebrate Open Access Week 2022, we continue to make significant progress in the transition to open access (OA) publishing. In our latest fiscal year, which ran from May 2021 through April 2022, we signed 28 transformational open access agreements, doubling the number of agreements signed in the previous 12 months.  We also launched more than 50 new OA journals and flipped an additional 24 hybrid and subscription journals to an OA business model.

Since 2016, we have completed more than 40 transformational agreements, which support academics at more than 2,200 institutions globally by making the path to open access publishing easier. These agreements span 23 countries, giving the option to publish more than 69,000 open access articles each year, and include institutions of all sizes – from individual universities to country-wide initiatives, such as Jisc in the UK and Projekt DEAL in Germany.

Since publishing our first open access journal more than a decade ago, we have made a bold commitment to making more research open and have increased the amount of open access publishing from 8% of articles in 2016 to 35% of articles at the close of its last fiscal year. In 2021, we also acquired Hindawi, a leading OA publisher, advancing a shared commitment to openness in research and expanding the company’s gold open access journal portfolio to over 450 titles, as well as its share of open access publishing to more than 40%.

Driven by this increase in open access publishing, we have also seen increased usage of our research, rising to nearly one billion full text views of Wiley content in the last 12 months.

Additionally, we continue to advance partnerships that enable discovery and support responsible research assessment, including through content partnerships with ResearchGate and Wikipedia, and signing onto DORA.

The journey continues – as do we – to advance access to peer-reviewed research. It’s needed now more than ever.

Clarivate Identifies the Role of Research and Innovation in the World’s Shift to Sustainable Energy 

Clarivate Plc, today released a new report, A study of energy in transition: the role of research and innovation in the world’s shift to sustainable energy sources. It finds that innovation activity in the sustainable energy space is tailing off, as research and inventive activities for respective renewable develops at different paces. This finding is based on Clarivate data normalized for overall increases in scientific journal and patent output increases globally in all subject areas. 

According to the report, solar photovoltaic and wind power, two of the eight categories of renewable energy sources based on the EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy, have seen the greatest volume of research and inventive activity in the past three decades, but that activity is tailing off i. This indicates that the two sustainable energies approached development maturity, where the most complex technological issues and challenges have been solved.  

Oceanic power generation currently falls within the immature scale of the report’s sustainable energy sources maturity index,ii despite oceanic power, with its high energy density, being seen as one of the most promising sustainable energy sources if fully harnessed. 

From a geographic perspective, Mainland China tops global research and innovation output in renewable energy sources, strengthening its international stature as a research and innovation powerhouse. While the United States and Mainland China are closely matched in terms of cumulative scientific research output for renewable energy sources, Mainland China’s cumulative inventive activity for renewable energy sources far exceeds that of the U.S. Patent activity for renewable energy in Mainland China is, however, not keeping pace with overall Mainland Chinese patent activity, which is accelerating.iii This supports the report’s analysis that research and innovation activity in the sustainable energy space is tailing off. 

“This study is part of our contribution towards the UN Sustainable Development Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure. It looks at the relationship between global research and innovation in the roll out and development of sustainable energy sources. It identifies current gaps, trends and needs of further research concentration, while looking at where capabilities lie, by sustainable energy source and geography,” said Tiffani Shaw, Chief of Staff and Sustainability Sponsor, Office of the CEO, Clarivate. 

Other key findings of the report include: 

  • Renewable non-fossil fuels, which include green hydrogen, have experienced among the lowest level of inventive and foundational research activity to date. 
  • Top five countries/regions for inventive impact: Mainland China, Saudi Arabia, Canada, United States and Switzerland iv. India has made great strides, with the highest increase in inventive strength. 
  • Top five countries/regions for top 1% citation impact in scientific articles: Australia, Switzerland, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and Canada.

Ed White, Chief Analyst and VP, IP and Innovation Research at Clarivate said, “Securing a habitable, sustainable planet for future generations is one of the world’s most pressing concerns. Our study provides innovation intelligence to bridge the information gap between ambition and action – so that funders, corporations, governments and researchers can better understand the state of the current research and innovation ecosystem for renewable energy sources and its likely future shape.  In doing so, we enable them to support decision making to accelerate the shift to sustainable energy.” 

White concluded, “The current energy crisis has added a sense of urgency to the world’s efforts to transition to sustainable energy. Policy makers can take the answers uncovered by the world’s scientists and match their governments’ sustainable energy ambitions with tangible action. At Clarivate, our broad range of curated insights – from scientific and academic research to IP intelligence – coupled with deep analytical expertise, can help the world make sense of complex issues, such as the state of our world’s transition to sustainable energy sources, providing answers for the way forward to a better, sustainable energy-powered future.” 

AAAS Selects Cadmore Media to Host Streaming Content on Science.org

In line with recent undertakings to improve the user experience and accessibility, The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) – publisher of the Science Family of Journals – has selected Cadmore Media as its streaming partner on science.org. This will result in improved accessibility and discoverability of streaming content on the site, as well as a more efficient workflow for internal production staff.

Christopher Reid, Director, Product Development and Publishing, at AAAS stated “Cadmore was a logical choice for our needs; their player and workflow are specifically designed for scholarly publishing, and they are a nimble and future-oriented partner. We are excited about increases in accessibility that a partnership with Cadmore provides, especially as video grows ever more important in scholarly communication.”

Violaine Iglesias, CEO and co-founder of Cadmore, added “Science is one of the most cited journals in the world, and plays an essential role in public awareness of scientific progress. We are honored to be trusted with delivering streaming media to readers of the entire Science Family of Journals and look forward to collaborating with them on creative solutions to workflow challenges.”

As well as offering a customized player for different user experiences, the integrated workflow allows production staff to ingest media into the platform; assign, edit, and manage robust metadata; set embargoes and encryption levels when required; and edit the metadata, transcriptions, and segmentation of the media itself.

The Cadmore player will be in place on science.org by the end of December, along with nearly 4,000 pieces of audio and video content that will be migrated to the site. It will also be used in the future on the Science Partner Journal program at https://spj.sciencemag.org/.

De Gruyter enters strategic partnership with Bristol University Press

De Gruyter is pleased to announce its global strategic partnership in eBook distribution with Bristol University Press (BUP). Berlin-based academic publisher De Gruyter will host and distribute the complete frontlist and backlist collections encompassing over 2,000 titles from Bristol University Press and its imprint Policy Press. Through this partnership, De Gruyter will become the only vendor to distribute Bristol University Press’s complete list. Users will be able to access said collections only through the Press’s website and through degruyter.com.

De Gruyter and Bristol University Press share a mutual vision to disseminate academic works to a global audience. Founded in 2016, Bristol University Press prides itself on publishing research that encourages positive social change by addressing global social, economic, political and environmental challenges. The press includes the award-winning Policy Press, founded in 1996, an imprint with a 26-year history of publishing for progressive social change.

Bristol University Press will join 20 other university presses in De Gruyter’s University Press Library (UPL), an eBook distribution model that is focused on complete digital output from publisher partners, with DRM-free and multi-user access. Bristol will not only become the second University Press from the United Kingdom to be added to the University Press Library, but the Press’s focus on socio-economic themes will bring additional depth to content uniquely accessible in the UPL.

“De Gruyter has built an impressive community of scholarly publishers and academic institutions in the University Press Library. Bristol University Press is well suited to the values and mission of this group, adding depth to important areas such as global human rights and policy. We’re delighted to have Bristol University Press join our UPL community,” said Michael Zeoli, Director, Publisher Partner Program, De Gruyter.

“At a time when digital access is so crucial, our partnership with De Gruyter expands BUP’s global reach and mission to disseminate cutting-edge research addressing the global social challenges. It is a privilege to join a platform with other like-minded presses as we expand our reach into the international library community,” said Jo Greig, Sales and Marketing Director, Bristol University Press.

Applications open for Best publisher UX award 2023

OpenAthens, which makes access to knowledge easy through single sign-on solutions, opens applications for its Best publisher user experience (UX) award 2023. The award is a fantastic opportunity for online publishers to demonstrate how their innovative work improves user experience. Publishers must submit their application form by Friday 18 November 2022.

Now in its fourth year, OpenAthens’ UX award is unique and has become well-recognized in the publishing and information industry. Chaired by OpenAthens’ international marketing manager Jane Charlton, the judging panel includes several high-profile industry experts and library advocates.

The award was created around OpenAthens’ mission to help people achieve great things by removing barriers to knowledge. It showcases publishers that put their users at the heart of service design and recognizes those that deliver simple journeys to content and services.

Why publishers should consider applying

Publisher interest in good UX design has picked up momentum in recent years. This is due to the impact poor user experience has had on bread and butter library subscriptions and losses associated with users going to pirate sites. Through this yearly award, publishers have the opportunity to demonstrate how they have listened to library customer feedback and improved user experience.

For some publishers, delivering a great user experience is a USP for those wanting to get ahead of their competitors. The industry is waking up to the fact that user experience is no longer a nice to have. It should be central to everything a publisher does to ensure business sustainability.

International marketing manager, Jane Charlton reflected:

“Over the last few years we’ve seen more publishers invest in strategic UX capability. Some publishers chose to work with UX consultants, while others invested in their own UX teams to deliver what was needed. The results speak for themselves.”

You don’t need to be one of the larger publishers to win. nkoda digital sheet music app won the award in 2021 and Health Data Research were presented with a highly commended award that recognized their outstanding contribution to the healthcare and information sector.

The UX award is also a great way for publishers to learn from each other. Award finalists and previous year’s award winners present their UX innovations and the impact on users at a finalists webinar.

Russell Palmer, panel judge and assistant director at GALILEO virtual library, commented:

“I look forward to the OpenAthens Best Publisher UX Award finalists webinar each year. It is the culmination of an engaging and collaborative process, both for the review team and the publishers involved. Viewing the publisher presentations and learning how they have improved their UX process while integrating UX design into their organizational strategy and culture offers insights that benefit our consortium and other publishers.”

Previous UX award winners

Independent academic publisher De Gruyter was crowned this year’s UX award winner after they demonstrated a user-centric approach to improving user journey and overall experience. Working with 67 Bricks, they completely rebuilt degruyter.com to deliver exceptional user experience that streamlined user access to knowledge. Previous winners include global publisher Emerald Publishing (2020) and nkoda (2021).

De Gruyter and Ubiquity join forces

Open research publisher and service provider Ubiquity is joining the Berlin-based academic publisher De Gruyter. Moving forward, the two companies will work together closely to advance both publishers’ mission to make academic research globally accessible and discoverable by offering excellent publishing services.

Ubiquity was founded by researchers in order to accelerate change towards open access and open science in 2012. Ubiquity publishes gold and diamond open access journals and books through its imprint Ubiquity Press, and supports 33 independent university presses with publishing services. Along with these partners, Ubiquity currently provides over 800 open access journals and more than 2,800 open access books. Ubiquity extended its services in 2021 with the launch of its institutional repositories platform, adding capacity to drive green open access and the dissemination of all research outputs, such as preprints and data.

In line with its principles, Ubiquity bases its journal, book and repository platforms on open source, and is an active contributor to these community-managed codebases. Ubiquity’s customer charter further testifies to the company’s commitment to openness, ensuring that the organization will always publish in open access, base its platforms on open source, and provide unbundled products. De Gruyter has agreed to the continuation of this charter, ensuring that Ubiquity will continue to operate according to these values and in partnership with the open community.

De Gruyter, an independent global publishing house founded in 1749 in Berlin, has been an advocate and early adopter of open access for over a decade. De Gruyter published its first open access book in 2010 and launched its first fully gold open access journal in 2013. Today, the publisher’s open access portfolio comprises more than 2,500 open access books and around 120 fully open access journals.

In 2012, De Gruyter acquired the open access publisher Versita, which now operates as Sciendo, to provide publishing services to academic institutions, societies and authors. Since launching its Publisher Partner Program in 2012 with Harvard University Press, which has since grown to over 20 partners, De Gruyter offers services such as full ebook collection distribution and archive digitization to many of the most prestigious academic publishing houses in the United States and worldwide.

By acquiring and investing in Ubiquity, De Gruyter will grow its existing open access and service business further and help the Ubiquity team reach their goals as an open research publisher and provider of open publishing services. As part of De Gruyter, Ubiquity will continue pursuing its mission to make quality open access publishing affordable and retain a high degree of independence to do so. The Ubiquity team and CEO and founder Brian Hole will keep working from their London office and remotely to continue their successful journey of researcher-led publishing.

“We are thrilled to join forces with De Gruyter, with whom we are very well-aligned in terms of values and a commitment to growing open access. De Gruyter’s Publisher Partner Program is a perfect example of where we can together provide a more comprehensive set of solutions to universities. In particular De Gruyter’s status as a family-owned company gives us and our community a strong assurance of a stable, long-term partnership and investment, with which we can continue to advance our mission in all areas of open access and open science,” said Brian Hole, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ubiquity.

“As a leading publisher of open access journals and books, we are excited to welcome Ubiquity to De Gruyter. Ubiquity brings a great team, technology, as well as valuable experience in providing open research publishing services to De Gruyter. Ubiquity’s offering perfectly complements our own open access mission and publishing services portfolio – I look forward to working together,” said Carsten Buhr, Managing Director of De Gruyter.

Major expansion of Cambridge open access monographs programme

Positive response to pilot sees major expansion of Cambridge open access monographs programme, Flip it Open.

More than 100 academic monographs are to be included in an expanded open access scheme from Cambridge University Press.

They will be part of the publisher’s Flip it Open programme, which turns conventional publishing models on their head by making academic monographs that sell the most copies available open access.

Mandy Hill, Managing Director of Cambridge University Press, said: “Finding new ways to publish books open access and pioneering new publishing models like Flip it Open are among the many ways we are working to realise the potential of an Open future, with increased reach for and access to the research we publish.

“By removing obstacles to publishing and to access, while maintaining the highest standards of integrity and transparency, we are also fulfilling our mission and that of our university.”

Flip it Open sees selected books published and sold as normal, primarily through library collections for universities. But once titles meet a set amount of revenue, the Press has committed to make them available open access through Cambridge Core, the online home for the Press’s academic content.

This means books without central funding can also be published open access, allowing their authors greater reach and impact without the need to pay open access publishing fees or processing charges.

A pilot was launched in 2021 involving selected classics, politics and history titles. The positive response has led to a decision to extend the pilot to become a wider part of the Press’s publishing programme, covering a further 100 titles across STM and HSS subjects.

Ben Denne, Director of Books Publishing at the Press, said: “Our aim with the pilot was to see if it could create a sustainable model for scaling up open access books publishing. We have been delighted with the positive response our initiative has received, with libraries wanting to contribute and from authors asking how they can add their books to the mix.”

At the same time a book is made freely available online, the Press will also release it as an affordable paperback edition for those who want a physical copy. 

Ben added: “This is a way to put the core open access principles of availability, inclusivity and dissemination into practice in our books publishing – principles that align perfectly with our our own mission and that of our University.

“Libraries will know upfront that they are buying a title that might become open access, and this is our way of asking our customers, mostly institutional libraries, to become actively involved in funding them to flip. Libraries are paying to get the book early, and to fund a wider program that will benefit them, their customers and the wider academic community.”

Frankfurter Buchmesse 2022 – positive turnout: Strong impetus for the publishing industry and social change

Over 4,000 exhibitors and 180,000 visitors on the fairgrounds

The 74th Frankfurter Buchmesse (19–23 October 2022) reaffirmed its position as the most important international meeting point for the book and media industry: with 93,000 trade visitors (2021: 36,000 trade visitors) and 87,000 private visitors (2021: 37,500 private visitors), Frankfurter Buchmesse was well frequented. Over 4,000 exhibitors from 95 countries were present in the halls, in the Literary Agents & Scouts Centre (LitAg) and in the new Workstations. Some 6,400 media representatives reported from the fairgrounds. Hosting some 300 agents at more than 450 workplaces, the Literary Agents & Scouts Centre (LitAg) was overbooked. 

At the same time, the book fair was more political than ever, which was evident above all in the programme of events curated with the fair’s partners. In the Frankfurt Pavilion, politicians, cultural creatives, authors and translators engaged in lively discussions about the protest movement in Iran, the situation of people in Ukraine, increasing divisions in society, and the Russian opposition. Under the motto “Translate. Transfer. Transform.” this year’s book fair put a spotlight on translation and translators. Some 1,500 visitors made their way to the stage in the International Translation Center to take part in one of the close-to 30 events there. 

“In the midst of an oppressive global political situation, this fair sent important signals: face-to-face meetings serve as an antidote to polarisation in times of heated debate,” said Juergen Boos, Director of Frankfurter Buchmesse. “This shows how important Frankfurter Buchmesse is as a meeting place for the international publishing community: valuable relationships are maintained and new ones are made here in just a few days. We look back at five vibrant and successful fair days and are pleased about the positive turnout of Frankfurter Buchmesse 2022.” 

“Frankfurter Buchmesse was a major celebration of people’s enthusiasm for books and of democracy,” said Karin Schmidt-Friderichs, chairwoman of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association. “In crowded aisles and during lively debates, one could clearly feel the power of books, the joy of reunions and the desire to engage constructively with the issues of the day. Pressing topical issues were on the agenda – from the situation in Ukraine and Iran to topics such as diversity and social harmony. Frankfurter Buchmesse thus provided important impetus in terms of the current challenges facing the industry, society and the global political order. That allowed it to highlight its significance as the most important marketplace for books and a venue for promoting diversity and peaceful exchange.” 

Guest of Honour Spain showcases a diverse range of literary voices

Under the motto “Spilling Creativity”, the Guest of Honour country, Spain, showcased its linguistic and creative diversity. Since the project began in 2019, approximately 400 new books have been published in German along with numerous titles in other European languages. With numerous events on the fairgrounds and many more beyond it, Spain demonstrated at this year’s Frankfurter Buchmesse how tangible the theory is which was once formulated by Spanish author Carmen Martín Gaite: stories are like cherries – when you take one, you automatically get a second. World-famous figures such as Rosa Montero, Arturo Pérez-Reverte and Fernando Aramburu were present in Frankfurt. The Guest of Honour country can also claim a positive result from its time at the fair. “We have honoured Spain’s great literary tradition and offered a stage to new, promising voices. We hope that the ties newly made and deepened in and around Frankfurt to readers, publishers and book lovers from around the world will last for a long time to come,” said María José Gálvez, General Director of Books and Reading Promotion at the Spanish Ministry for Culture and Sports. 

Lively rights business and wide-ranging trade programme

The agents represented at the Literary Agents & Scouts Centre (LitAg) were very satisfied with the business they did. “It was brilliant to come back to a vibrant fair. The LitAg was crowded and with a very good energy, with deals and offers happening everywhere,” said literary agent Maria Cardona Serra of Aevitas Creative Management (UK/USA). 

Frankfurter Buchmesse also offered a packed three-day trade programme. Many international industry leaders spoke, including Peter Warwick, President and CEO of Scholastic; Charlie Redmayne, CEO of HarperCollins UK; Markus Dohle, CEO Penguin Random House; Jesús Badenes del Río, CEO Planeta, Jonny Geller, CEO of Curtis Brown; and Núria Cabutí, CEO of Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial. Also present were representatives of platforms such as TikTok, Spotify and Wattpad Webtoon. Some 1,700 participants attended the two-day Publishing Perspectives Forum. 

The #BookTok community was present at Frankfurter Buchmesse for the first time. “It’s all about the content. It has to tell a story,” said Tobias Henning, General Manager of TikTok Germany and Central Europe. Since the number of #BookTok video views recently surpassed 84 billion worldwide, the discussion could not have been timelier. 
The trade visitor days were accompanied by a digital trade programme: Masterclasses and the networking event The Hof offered industry players an opportunity to maintain and expand their networks virtually. 

An Awareness-Team made up of members of BDB (Bund für Antidiskriminierungs- und Bildungsarbeit e.V. / Alliance for Antidiscrimination and Education) was on duty during the entire fair. Visitors who felt they had been discriminated against could approach the team’s members on site or contact them by telephone or e-mail. 

“We are glad that the issue of anti-discrimination has found its place at Frankfurter Buchmesse in the form of the Awareness Team. We are pleased that the book fair is taking the issue seriously and giving it space at the event. The Awareness Team’s stand was very well received, not only by those who sought advice for concrete situations, but also by the media and interested individuals who wanted to find out more about our work and about discrimination in general. We at BDB e.V. hope that the process will continue, along with the constructive cooperation with Frankfurter Buchmesse,” said the Awareness Team in a statement. 

All videos of events at #fbm22 can be accessed in our media library and on the Frankfurter Buchmesse YouTube channel. 

Dates for the 75th Frankfurter Buchmesse: 18–22 October 2023
Guest of Honour: Slovenia

eLife ends accept/reject decisions following peer review

eLife is pleased to announce a major change in editorial practice. Building on its 2021 shift to exclusively reviewing preprints, the organisation is ending the practice of making accept/reject decisions following peer review.

From January 31, 2023, eLife will instead publish every paper it reviews as a Reviewed Preprint, a new type of research output that combines the manuscript with eLife’s detailed peer reviews and a concise assessment of the significance of the findings and quality of the evidence.

Michael Eisen, eLife Editor-in-Chief, says: “By relinquishing the traditional journal role of gatekeeper and focusing instead on producing public peer reviews and assessments, eLife is restoring control of publishing to authors, recovering the immense value that is lost when peer reviews are reduced to binary publishing decisions, and promoting the evaluation of scientists based on what, rather than where, they publish.”

eLife has developed this model over the past 18 months by asking reviewers to write public versions of their peer reviews that contain detailed observations useful to readers and an assessment that summarises their view of the manuscript’s contributions and methodological rigour.

Speaking on the reviews of more than 2,200 preprints eLife has posted since then, Deputy Editor Anna Akhmanova says: “These public preprint reviews and assessments are far more effective than the decision to publish a manuscript ever could be at conveying the thinking of our reviewers and editors, and capturing the nuanced, multidimensional, and often ambiguous nature of peer review.”

In the new process, eLife editors will invite expert reviewers to carry out high-quality peer review. The reviewers will produce constructive public peer reviews highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the work. They will also work together to produce an eLife assessment that captures their view of the significance of the findings and evaluates the strength of the evidence for them in language accessible to a non-expert reader.

Authors will have the option to submit a revised preprint that responds to the public reviews and private suggestions made by the reviewers. eLife will then publish a new Reviewed Preprint with updated reviews and assessment.

Fiona Hutton, eLife Head of Publishing, says: “Although the core process of peer review is largely unchanged, the output is fundamentally different. With our sole focus now on producing and conveying useful public reviews and assessments, we are restoring autonomy to authors and defining a change in role for publishers.”

These moves are part of a grassroots movement to increase the availability of science and the speed with which it is communicated by promoting the use of preprints in biology and medicine. Preprint posting has grown rapidly, and many scientists and members of the public access the latest science via preprints. This has led a growing number of organisations to now accept preprints as evidence of productivity in grant and job applications. eLife’s new approach is aligning peer review with this new reality, and optimising its value to science and the public.

Prachee Avasthi, Chair of eLife’s Board of Directors, says: “eLife was founded with the mission to promote responsible behaviours in science like these. With independent funding that allows us to take bold steps, we are in a unique position to deliver a publishing system that researchers who care about the future of science can embrace.”

Bucking a recent trend of increasing article processing charges from publishers, these changes at eLife are accompanied by a reduction of its publication fee from $3,000 to $2,000. This covers the costs of all rounds of peer review, the production of Reviewed Preprints and further steps. As has always been true at eLife, this fee will be waived for authors who cannot afford to pay it.

Damian Pattinson, eLife Executive Director, says: “Nothing about this process is eLife-specific: we hope that many publishers will join us in creating a future where results are openly shared and reviewed and, in doing so, will give even more researchers the opportunity to participate.”

Editor-in-Chief Eisen adds: “The power to fix science publishing resides uniquely with scientists, and those of us who have benefited tremendously from science, in our lives and in our careers, owe it to those whose hopes ride on its promise to not let our fear of change limit its impact one moment longer.”

For more information about eLife’s new publishing model, see the accompanying Editorial at https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.83889.

To read more about the process for authors, visit https://elifesciences.org/inside-elife/54d63486/elife-s-new-model-changing-the-way-you-share-your-research.

A press pack containing this content, along with a video interview with Michael Eisen and a diagram highlighting the new process, is available here.

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