The event builds on our new virtual client events, publisher working groups, and increased communications. Throughout the day, attendees enjoyed updates on the product roadmap, demonstrations of AI-enhanced publishing workflows, and client showcases highlighting how organizations are achieving their goals with ScholarOne. Below, hear from attendees and read key takeaways from each session.
The day kicked off with enthusiasm for the progress we’ve made in the first year since the ScholarOne acquisition. Silverchair’s client events are marked by genuine transparency: questions, interruptions, and challenges were not just welcomed but encouraged—it is rare that we’re all able to get together and we want to make each moment count.
CEO Will Schweitzer kicked off the day and shared how the ten months since acquisition had focused on responsive service, accelerated development, and significant infrastructure modernization, including updating core technical components by nearly a decade. He also issued an important invitation: speak candidly about what's working and what isn't, because understanding your needs drives everything forward.
What’s New and What’s Next for ScholarOne
Josh Dahl, SVP of Product, opened with refreshing honesty about where the platform stood ten months ago. When the team gathered last December to define ScholarOne's value proposition, some boxes checked easily: comprehensive workflows, proven scalability, and flexibility across diverse publishing programs. But other areas needed work. Integration timelines dragged, custom development processes felt incomplete, community engagement had vanished with no user group meetings for years, and innovation felt more reactive than proactive. Rather than pretend everything was fine, Josh admitted it felt disingenuous to claim differentiation without proving it first. So, we got to work.- Product team restructured around clear ownership
- Launched quarterly planning cycles with three-week sprints
- Expanded the Silverchair Universe partnership network
- Kicked off publisher working groups for real-time feedback
The modernization progress enabled faster development patterns that will accelerate future releases. The last year hasn’t been without challenges, but the commitment was clear: transparent roadmaps, regular engagement, and giving publishers real influence over the platform's direction.
AI-Enhance Publishing Workflows
Josh Dahl was then joined on stage by Kevin Forgrave, Senior Product Manager of AI, to showcase all the ways we’ve brought ScholarOne into Silverchair’s highly successful AI Lab. Our AI development philosophy? Real value over hype, humans firmly in the loop, and absolutely no black box magic.From editor assistant tools to support in verifying citations and recommending reviewers, there are a lot of ideas and prototypes in the works. We took advantage of the audience in the room to get some opinions on how to prioritize the many ideas floating around the AI Lab. Hands raised and enthusiasm peaked when we started to discuss more advanced analytics for editors and admins.
Ultimately, our AI adoption strategy leaves control firmly in the publisher’s court: as Josh asserted, our tools will need to compete in the open marketplace. We’re not abandoning integrations or third-party tools, instead offering a range of options that will serve publisher needs first.
User Experience Workshop
Adrienne Fisher, Senior Product Manager, kicked off the User Experience workshop with characteristic candor, acknowledging the elephant in the room: ScholarOne's interface has earned a reputation as challenging and sometimes archaic. But all of that is changing with ScholarOne Gateway. Building on design principles to make the new interface engaging, modern, usable, and streamlined, Adrienne charted the evolution of Gateway over the past year. She ended by promising the direct integration of Gateway into the ScholarOne system following substantial architecture modernization work and adopting new UI component libraries that align with the platform's long-term vision.During the workshop, Summit attendees took on the challenges of prioritizing what’s next for Gateway and forthcoming editor experience work. From presubmission checks to transparent status tracking to save time responding to author questions and much more, the publishers in the room shared their pain points and processes with candor. These types of conversations will continue in Publisher Working Groups, helping the Product team understand what matters most so they can build the features customers actually need.
Flexibility, Integration, and Partnership
Hannah Heckner Swain, VP of Strategic Partnerships, opened this by introducing the Silverchair Universe program. Drawing on Silverchair's established partner model, launched in 2017, she outlined the strategic approach to partnerships: identifying best-in-class solutions that help publishers make money, save money, or fulfill their mission while ensuring partners are known entities with staying power. The acquisition announcement sparked a flood of partnership inquiries, and ScholarOne's existing API infrastructure provided solid groundwork for expansion.Branimir Bojić, Team Lead, Client Solutions, API & Integrations, then took the stage with a pop culture-heavy presentation, comparing APIs to universal translators and the Force itself—digital bridges that democratize data access and remove traditional gates. He walked through ScholarOne's GET and POST capabilities, explaining how they work in tandem like "peanut butter and jelly, or Han Solo and shooting first." The centerpiece of our API development is ScholarOne Relay, the "Swiss army knife of POST calls" enabling research integrity vendors like STM Integrity Hub, ClearSkies, and Cactus Paperpal Preflight to assess manuscripts and post results directly back into the system—essentially harnessing AI to fight AI, as Bojić put it, "Terminator 2 all over again."
Executive Team Ask Me Anything
Silverchair’s client events historically end with our leadership team in the hot seat. Will Schweitzer (CEO), Stuart Leitch (CTO), Josh Dahl (SVP of Product), Emilie Delquie (Chief Product and Customer Success Officer), and Eirik Olsen (Chief Strategy Officer) brought the conference full circle with the Executive Team AMA.Will confessed his nerves about meeting the ScholarOne community en masse for the first time, only to discover they shared the same "level of dorky humor that pervades every aspect of this company." Stuart emphasized getting to know the spirit of this particular community after fourteen years with Silverchair, while Josh celebrated the long-awaited return to in-person gatherings and candid exchanges. Eirik, originally brought in to lead the ScholarOne integration, marked the day as a milestone the team had dreamed about for months.
Audience questions ranged from production tracking system, integrations and data reproducibility workflows, to the team's personal AI usage—where revelations included Will tracking his energy levels through Apple Watch data to identify which colleagues give him the most energy in collaborating, Eirik building subagents to complete week-long industry analyses in a single day, and Stuart mentioning he uses transcription services to join meetings he doesn't attend and then analyzes them through various psychological lenses. The self-aware humor extended to acknowledging the trust they needed to build, with Josh candidly noting they spent the first year since the ScholarOne acquisition proving they could "move faster than we were" and showing they deserved to be the partner that customers wanted for the next five years.
Summit 2026
Looking ahead to next year's Summit, the team expressed hopes to move beyond rebuilding trust and catching up, instead focusing on delivering measurable value and celebrating ScholarOne as simply part of the workflow rather than a before-and-after transformation story.ScholarOne clients: contact your Account Manager for recordings of the Summit sessions and save the date for next year: September 24, 2026.