Bringing together case studies, innovators in adjacent industries, and in-depth discussions on the hot topics, Platform Strategies offers powerful insights for publishing leaders. The event returns to Washington, DC on September 25th to tackle the technology challenges facing the scholarly publishing industry.
Review the agenda and hear from last year's attendees below, then secure your spot here (use code PS25-EARLY for $75 off before July 1).
Agenda
- 8:30 AM – Check-in & Breakfast
- 9:05 AM – Welcome: This year's event centers around a theme of purposeful transformation. The capacity for purposeful transformation in the face of unprecedented challenges is what we need to continue to fulfill our missions. The future of our industry depends heavily on our ability to preserve and promote scientific advancement, and the platforms and technology we depend on play a pivotal role in that endeavor.
- Will Schweitzer, CEO, Silverchair
- 9:20 AM – Opening Keynote: Brace for Impact: Publisher and Technology Readiness for the Future of Publishing: Between AI, OA, and other transformation disruptions, the future of academic publishing demands innovation, adaptability, and strategic partnerships. How do we evaluate and improve publisher and technology readiness as we navigate the evolving landscape of scientific publishing? Possible topics include: the burgeoning role of third-party integrations in bolstering research integrity; the potential of automation to streamline legacy processes; the impact of infrastructure that is connected and integrated; and strategies to unlock and leverage the valuable data within their peer review systems to inform decision-making.
- Natalie Jacobs, Chief Product Officer at Emerald Publishing
- 9:50 AM – Does the Mission Matter? Strategic Frameworks for Balancing the 'Why' and the 'How' in Scholarly Publishing: In an industry that unites both for-profit and nonprofit organizations, our shared missions serve as a common thread, aligning us around collective goals and visions for the scholarly publishing sector and its broader societal impact. Many of these missions have endured for centuries, but in the face of modern developments (policy changes, AI, and emerging technologies) is it time to update them to better reflect the evolving ecosystem? This session will discuss the role of mission in product development, platform strategy, and technology partnerships. We will address the challenge of balancing mission fulfillment with business sustainability, as well as the persistent tension between the economic and philosophical aspects of open access (OA) and the debate over quantity versus quality in publishing strategies. How can we effectively tap into the core purpose of scholarly publishing and communicate it in ways that inspire meaningful change while not hindering growth and technological advancement?
- Mia Ricci, Director of Publications Operations, American Geophysical University
- Jay Brodsky, Chief Information Officer, AAAS
- Casper Grathwohl, President, Oxford Languages, and Academic Product Director at Oxford University Press
- 10:40 AM – Networking Break: Refresh, refuel, and catch up with other attendees in our networking lounges.
- 11:00 AM – Table Topics: This popular session format returns, kicking off with a short presentation, followed by small group discussions. (Have a topic you'd like to see discussed? Email strategies@silverchair.com)
- 12:00 PM – Lunch
- 1:30 PM – Welcome to the jungle – a researcher’s journey through existing processes: The paths through the scholarly publishing lifecycle as a researcher can be complex, poorly marked, or just plain difficult. Join us for a discussion with researchers to hear about how they prioritize their projects, what tools they love and loathe, how they track the impact of their work, and what they consider to be the biggest roadblocks in their existing workflows. This conversation will touch on the value of the existing infrastructure but will mainly be an opportunity to hear directly from researchers how they experience the industry's widely accepted practices. Attendees can expect to leave the session with a better understanding of the thought-process, values and motivations behind researchers' decisions.
- Irene Newton, Professor of Biology, Indiana University Bloomington
- Donny Persaud, PhD Candidate, Dept of Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University
- 2:00 PM – Breakout Rooms: Have a topic you'd like to discuss with fellow leaders? Email strategies@silverchair.com.
- 3:00 PM – Networking Break
- 3:20 PM – How AI is Transforming Platform Strategy: It has been said that software ate the world. Now, AI is coming to eat software. AI models are becoming disproportionately stronger in domains with easily verifiable solutions, such as mathematics and formal reasoning. Software programming is likewise a bounded domain with strong reward signals for models to self-learn. It’s now possible to generate entire toy applications from a single prompt. The very nature of software development is about to get turned on its ear and it’s likely that at progressive companies, humans will be writing only a small fraction of code commits within 5 years. It’s early days in this rapid transformation, but the direction of travel is clear. On-platform, AI functionality is drastically changing the user experience through workflow improvements, improved discovery, and added capabilities. Finally, we're seeing disintermediation trends in traffic patterns as humans increasingly use agentic AI to search and synthesize primary literature. In other words, AI is changing platforms from both ends—where does that leave us?
- Stuart Leitch, CTO, Silverchair
- 4:00 PM – Closing Keynote: Anu Bradford: Anu Bradford is a leading scholar and an award-winning author of bestselling books on the digital economy and the European Union. Bradford will speak to the broader global landscape and geopolitical shifts around technology, as well as what purposeful transformation looks like for organizations in this context.
- 5:30 PM – Closing Reception
Here's what last year's attendees had to say:
- "Silverchair Platform Strategies is the meeting I look forward to most every year. No detail is missed in the planning and execution of this event. From the venue to the food to the swag to the best speakers in scholarly publishing, Silverchair thinks of everything. Most importantly, though, they make every single one of us feel like the most important person in the room. Every opinion is encouraged and valued. Countdown is on for #Strategies25!" —Jennifer Regala, Wolters Kluwer
- "The culture of the meeting sets the tone which is great! Very well planned and executed." —Judy Luther, Informed Strategies
- "The size and spirit of collaboration was great!" —anon
- "Keep bringing the community together!" —Barry Bealer, Impelsys, Inc.
- "Please do not change the overall tone of the event. It is unique in the space." —anon
- "Platform Strategies has become the highlight of my fall conference season. Silverchair stays true to their mission of discussing strategic ideas that the entire industry as well as individuals can think about and explore to bring excellence to their organizations." —Marianne Calilhanna, DCL
- "Silverchair is a great convener." —Sara Rouhi, AIPP
- "I felt surrounded by the Silverchair folks in the best way possible. Every time I looked up, there were Silverchairians standing around the room ready to help." —anon
- "Platform Strategies demonstrates Silverchair's commitment to honest and difficult conversations, but in a spirit of assuming positive intent and looking for solutions to industry-wide issues." —Alistair Reece, GeoScienceWorld
- "Platform Strategies brings the brightest and best minds in the industry to talk together" —Chris Reid
Platform Strategies 2025 is generously sponsored by Hum, DCL, OpenAthens, Access Innovations, & Digital Science.