Interview
up a huge image database. Its goal was to handle rights and licenses electronically, but like most image databases, we were swallowed up when the internet began offering billions of free images. The idea for an independent conference
on scholarly communications (Academic Publishing in Europe) was born soon after the open access declaration of the Max Planck Society (MPG) in 2003. It was obvious that we should start to talk to each other. With the support of the MPG, but also CERN and with the help of several STM publishers – in particular IOS Press, Elsevier, Wiley, Springer and De Gruyter – I was able to announce the first APE Conference for 2006. I was independent and I knew many people; the novelty was that all stakeholders were willing to participate. The discussions were not particularly friendly, and one of the participants even called open access ‘content communism’. However, the first APE Conference became an instant success, and has been ever since.
This year was the 14th APE. What was the biggest development in scholarly communications in the last 15 years? If I restrict myself to APE: we learned to
talk and to listen to each other. That was new. APE brought together high-level politicians and policy makers, funders, researchers, publishers, librarians, technology companies, consultants – and, last but not least, head hunters. APE is prime hunting territory. Everybody feels that we are at the
“Everybody feels that we are at the beginning of a new era, witnessing the creation of an ecosystem”
beginning of a new era, witnessing the creation of an ecosystem – but we are also learning to depend on each other… even more so in the times of Plan S!
What developments do you predict for the industry over the next 15 years? What used to be science publishing, will be become background music. In times of open access, open science, and data science, we need a trustworthy
ecosystem for the discovery, access and understanding of scientific information. Quality control and ethical standards will become more important. Innovation will be the driving force. New areas of knowledge will come up. Publishers are becoming information analytics companies, offering high-level pipe-line services to researchers and users. Publishers owning platforms will increase their market share. Now that virtually unlimited masses of data are available, artificial intelligence will become very important.
Tell us about your plans to put APE into a trust... It is still early days but I am investigating to create a permanent entity, such as a foundation, to continue the aims of the APE Conferences. The aim is that the net income from the conferences should be used for educational programmes – for instance where young publishers and early career researchers can learn together how to respect each other, and together improve the world.
Interview by Tim Gillett
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