Perspectives

Transformative Agreements (TAs) are increasingly popular with publishers and institutions. However, they create significant challenges for the society partners of publishers. It is incumbent on societies to engage in frank discussions with their publisher about the impact of the publisher’s open access strategy and TAs on the society’s journals. It is critical to model, as more of the journal becomes open access via TAs, how the society journal’s different revenue streams will be impacted.

C&E Managing Partner Michael Clarke moderated a panel at the STM Conference 2023 in Frankfurt on the shift to open access (OA) publishing models and the potential for OA to improve research visibility and impact. The discussion covered current OA models, progress to date in the transition to OA, and how STM publishers can continue to adapt and evolve.

In this insightful Q&A with Nicko Goncharoff of Osmanthus Consulting, with whom C&E partnered to develop International STM Publishing in China: State of the Market Report 2023 – we explore China’s recent publishing sector and research assessment reforms. We demonstrate how international publishers and publishing service providers can navigate the dynamic and unique China market.

A seismic shift has taken place in scholarly publishing, putting authors forefront of marketing efforts. This is not just a shift in messaging. Marketing to authors requires new tools, techniques, and expertise. Publishers that are able to make this transition more rapidly are gaining a competitive advantage over those that move slower.  

Guaranteed revenues provide the cornerstone for many publishing services agreements (PSAs), the contracts that professional societies enter into with large publishers related to journal publishing. Societies looking to mitigate their risk and receive predictable revenues must be cognizant of guarantees that do not, in reality, do either of these things (or that do them poorly).

The publishing services RFP is often managed as if it is a “procurement” or “vendor selection” process. This is problematic, as such processes are typically designed to evaluate proposals for fee-for-service vendors. Publishers, however, are not vendors, and they do not typically operate under fee-for-service arrangements. Understanding that the procurement model is not suited to selecting a publisher and negotiating an agreement for publishing services, then what is the alternative? If the procurement model is not suited to selecting a publisher and negotiating an agreement for publishing services, what is the alternative?

Conferences are so deeply embedded in the culture and cadence of science and academia that it is hard to imagine what professional life would look like without them. Many organizations are looking to replace conferences with virtual events, but simply streaming the same sessions on the same schedule may prove insufficient. Shifting meetings to virtual formats requires reconceptualizing meetings for the needs of attendees working from home — and rethinking business models, technologies, and processes as well. Societies and associations with annual meetings will need to think the implications for member engagement and member renewals, manuscript recruitment, education, and other ripple effects.

Societies have two fundamental choices when it comes to publishing their journals: they can remain independent, managing all facets of the publication business, or they can work with a larger commercial or not‐for‐profit publisher. If a society chooses to work with a larger publisher, it will invariably do so via a publishing services agreement. This article discusses the challenges and complexities facing independent society publishers and the reasons why some societies choose to enter into publisher services agreements, whereas others choose to remain independent.

Plan S implementation guidance has not provided reassurance to anxious society publishers. The stated aim of Plan S is to achieve “full and immediate Open Access to publications from publicly funded research,” but the prohibition against publishing in hybrid journals is not needed to accomplish that aim.

Shifts in how publishers market and sell journal packages have significant implications for society journal valuations over the long term. These same shifts may also be setting some societies up for publisher “lock-in” — making it difficult to change publishers in the future.