Strategies is back in Washington, DC on September 23rd, and this year we're tackling a timely theme for where our industry stands right now: Signal & Noise.
If the last few years of Platform Strategies conversations have been about the potential of AI, this year we're moving into what's actually happening. Submission queues are up 30% and climbing, driven by AI-assisted research, thin-slicing, and outright slop. Discovery is increasingly mediated by systems publishers don't own and can't fully see into. And the line between quality and noise is increasingly difficult to draw.
The good news is that not only are we tackling these timely challenges and exploring real-world experiments and solutions, we're doing so with some of the brightest minds our industry (and adjacent industries!) has to offer.
In the opening keynote, Wendy Queen (JHUP) takes stock of how far the conversation has moved in the last year, with a look at AI's real-world impact on researcher workflows as well as the many other transformations happening simultaneously. From there, we'll dig into what quality actually means in research when integrity tools were built to catch bad actors, not measure whether the science is any good — a conversation with Dawn Melley of IEEE, Miriam Maus of IOP Publishing, and Jonathan Woahn of Cashmere, moderated by Hum's Dustin Smith.
We'll also look at the increasingly urgent topic of how misinformation and platform design intersect, with NEJM's David Sampson, Science Magazine's Meagan Phelan, and Defend Research's Suze Kundu, and dig into peer review pressures revealed in our 2026 Future of Peer Review Report through an interactive Table Topics session.
In a scarily full-circle moment, we'll also revisit a question we first raised at Platform Strategies two years ago: what's a platform's job if it's no longer the default point of contact between researcher and research? With PLOS's Alison Mudditt, Sage's Andy McGregor, Delta Think's Ann Michael, and Cold Spring Harbor Press's David Crotty joining our own CEO Will Schweitzer, this redux session brings two years of hard evidence to a conversation that felt largely hypothetical the first time around.
To close out the day, we're zooming out. It's so easily to get navel-gazey within our microcosm of scholarly publishing, so we're bringing together leaders either new to the industry or from adjacent ones to share what scholarly publishing can learn from sectors that have already lived through similar disruption. Finally, we'll hear from Jacob Ward — CNN technology correspondent, PBS host, and former Popular Science editor-in-chief — on what human skills are worth protecting as AI reshapes how we work.
As much as we love the stage time, we know Platform Strategies has always been about what happens between sessions. As always, we'll build in generous breaks and meals specifically because some of the best strategy conversations happen over coffee, not from a podium, and we close the day with a reception so those conversations can keep going. Because it's not just the speakers who are impressive — it's the attendees too: last year, 54% of attendees were executives (C-Suite, Presidents, Founders) and another 19% were senior leaders at their organizations (Directors, Senior Managers, VPs).
And if none of that sealed the deal for you: Silverchair has a reputation for great swag, giveaways, and fun shenanigans and we're particularly excited about what we have planned for this year...
Registration closes on September 1st and we sell out every year, so register here to save your spot — see you in DC!