NEWS

APE 2013

The Funding of Publishing. Changes and Consequences for Science and Society

In 2006 the first APE Conference brought together all European stakeholders in the fierce Open Access debates of those days. Since 2006 a lot has happened.

Seven years later the principles of Open Access have been understood and accepted and a growing number of publishers and their organisations, such as the International Association of STM Publishers, now support gold open access. Existing as well as new publishers have started OA journals or have opened their journals for mixed models (a.o. Open Choice at Springer). After PLoS other mega-journals are coming, covering a very broad spectrum. First projects to publish books the same way have been started. We now understand much better the various roles and responsibilities in scientific and scholarly publishing. And we know for sure that publishing and archiving costs money.

There has been considerable financial start-up support for OA publishing. With the growing political approval of Open Access, further changes in funding can be expected, which might have a serious impact on existing journal publications as well as on library budgets.

In APE 2013 we want to address these changes and consequences for science and society and find answers to questions about sustainability up to archiving. In addition, we want to focus on dissemination and accessibility, the integration of research data & publications, unique identifiers, interoperability, measuring and managing research output, innovations, rights & licenses, data mining and enhancing, search engines and enabling technologies.

The APE 2013 Conference Program will be developed by a high level Program Committee and offer the usual broad perspective. We welcome proposals for topics and speakers.

The now renowned APE Conferences aim at a better understanding of scholarly communication and the role of information in science, education and society. They encourage the debate about the future of value-added scientific publishing, information dissemination and access to scientific results and offer an independent forum for 'open minds'. Participants have enjoyed this very open atmosphere in the Academy of Sciences at the famous Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin Mitte. Participants are: academic, educational, scientific, technological, medical, legal and professional publishers, university presses, researchers, authors, editors, librarians, teachers, learned and professional societies and associations, funding agencies, politicians and policy makers, subscription agencies and booksellers, recruiting agencies and technology providers. APE Conferences provide an inventory and show the way ahead in a collaborative effort involving all stakeholders. At the same time they are open for a review of new enabling technologies that may cope with new requirements and also look at sustainability given the changes of behaviour. In and between the private and the public sector there is still no complete understanding of the economics of electronic publishing and of the various functions in the value chains. This is an ongoing discussion. Coherent indicators are needed to measure the actual use and value of scientific information as a basis for future funding in the public sector and for investments in the private sector. As always there will be a lot of time for discussions and meetings with friends and colleagues. The Conference Dinner will be offered in Restaurant “Gendarmerie”, very close to the Academy.

www.ape2013.eu