Martina Dvořáková
Academic Publishing in Europe 2026 (APE) positions itself as Europe’s leading forum for scholarly publishing – and the conference fee certainly suggests it takes that positioning seriously. Over two days of keynotes, panels, and discussions, the organisers promised to explore the future of scholarly communication. From the perspective of the AEUP, this piece reflects not only what was said, but also what it meant – and what remained unsaid.
The burning library
The opening keynote by Caroline Sutton, CEO of the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers, framed the event with a powerful image – a burning library. Drawing on data from the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, she highlighted a troubling reality: trust in information is eroding, disinformation is increasingly normalized, and science faces a renewed epistemic threat.
“The library is burning. We have to come together and make sure we save the library.”
The metaphor returned repeatedly over the following days, serving as a reminder that scholarly communication is not a neutral infrastructure, but a fragile system embedded in political, economic, and social power relations – and one that can be set ablaze at any moment if there is no broad public consensus that it matters and must be protected.
As Sutton went on to argue, this is not easy. Every actor in the scholarly ecosystem – funders, institutions, researchers, publishers, and libraries – has their own interests. Any system that allows a single actor to dominate knowledge production becomes vulnerable. Checks and balances, she emphasized, are therefore essential for legitimacy, trust, and ultimately, democracy.
The argument for pluralism is compelling, especially when grounded in Merton’s norms of science (communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, organized skepticism). It also exposes a central tension that would reappear throughout the conference: openness alone does not guarantee integrity or even justice. Open does not mean true; verification, skepticism, and accountability remain essential.
Excellence reconsidered
Questions of excellence and evaluation were central to the panel Shaping the Future of Science.
Lorela Mehmeti, a researcher in Design Cultures at the University of Bologna, captured a crucial point:
“Excellence loses its value when it ignores the diversity and variety of those who produce it.”
Evaluation systems still privilege mainstream Western paradigms, dominant formats, English-language outputs, and established career trajectories. Alternative practices – community peer review, non-traditional workflows, diverse formats – remain marginal, even though abstract values like “excellence” become painfully concrete when careers depend on them.
Paweł Rowiński, President of ALLEA (European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities) added a perspective that strongly resonates with open science and Diamond Open Access communities:
“Excellence is not only about what science produces, but also how it is produced and under which conditions.”
Publishing choices are not neutral. They can reinforce concentration of power and wealth (as in APC-driven Gold OA models), or they can contribute to a more diverse, fair, community-oriented ecosystem (something Diamond OA and institutional publishing actively seek to do).
Inclusion is not a side issue
One of the most powerful contributions of the conference came from Ncoza Dlova, Dean of the School of Clinical Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal, who presented data on the structural exclusion of researchers from the Global South. Over 80% of her colleagues, she pointed out, work in contexts where APCs are not covered by institutions. Waivers exist, but they are limited, opaque, and often humiliating – forcing researchers to ask for exceptions rather than participate as equal partners.
This was a recurring theme across multiple sessions: Open Access has removed paywalls for readers, but it has often replaced them with paywalls to publish.
As Godwyns Onwuchekwa, Principal Consultant at Global Tapestry Consulting, put it in his keynote Beyond Open Access: Building Justice in Scholarly Communication:
“Openness without justice risks becoming performative.”
Justice, not openness alone, must be the foundation. Who controls infrastructure? Who sets prices? Whose languages, formats, and epistemologies count? Whose voices are present on editorial boards – and whose are missing?
Integrity, AI, and the urgent need to reform the system
Day two focused heavily on research integrity in a post-truth, AI-accelerated environment.
Anna Abalkina, research fellow at Freie Universität Berlin, specializes in paper mills, hijacked journals, and citation cartels. Her work made one thing clear: AI is not the root problem. It amplifies existing structural failures – perverse incentives, metric-driven evaluation, lack of training, and weak accountability.
Several speakers emphasized the absence of formal research integrity education for PhD students worldwide, and the urgent need for clear guidance on acceptable AI use. Transparency, orientation, and shared norms matter more than ever.
The Stockholm Declaration, presented by its authors Dan Larhammar and Bernhard Sabel, stood out for its concreteness. Unlike many abstract calls for reform, it proposes a clear roadmap for systemic reform with four pillars:
- Academia resumes control of publishing
- Incentive systems to merit quality, not quantity
- Independent fraud prevention and detection
- Legislation and policies to protect science quality and integrity
The Elephant in the Room: Power and Dialogue
Despite the richness of perspectives, something remained deeply unsettling.
“Freedom to speak requires safety, but in cross-stakeholder conversations, power dynamics can make real dialogue nearly impossible. Without diverse voices, we default to familiar ones,”
wrote Emma Green in her conference review in Scholarly Futures. This perfectly captured the unease many participants felt. Panels often consisted of the same dominant actors speaking about inclusion, justice, and reform – rather than with those most affected by current systems. In one session, it was even mentioned that a Diamond OA publisher had been invited but “declined” – a remark that raised more questions than it answered.
When the same circles repeatedly validate each other’s views, consensus can easily be mistaken for universal truth.
If the library is indeed burning, saving it will require more than new metrics, AI tools, or refined APC models. It will require redistributing voice, power, and trust – and creating space for experimentation, especially by those who have historically been underrepresented.
Final Reflections
APE 2026 was inspiring, unsettling, and at times frustrating. It made clear that many people recognize the depth of the crisis in scholarly publishing. But recognition alone is not transformation.
If we are serious about trust, integrity, and justice, we must:
- listen beyond the usual voices,
- accept discomfort and experimentation,
- and support plural, non-profit, community-rooted publishing models as essential infrastructure — not fringe alternatives.
For AEUP and its members, this feels particularly important. Smaller, institutional, and community-based publishers are uniquely positioned to counterbalance concentration of power in scholarly communication. They are close to academic communities, sensitive to disciplinary and linguistic diversity, and often more willing to experiment with fairer models.
Because every voice excluded is a perspective lost. And in a system already under strain, we cannot afford that loss.
People, initiatives, and documents worth following
Lorela Mehmeti for opening up new perspectives and exploring alternative ways of producing and disseminating knowledge.
Matthew Giampoala for his persistent efforts to expand access and engagement through open science and reproducibility initiatives.
Godwyns Onwuchekwa for consistently reminding us to consider who is missing from the table, amplifying underrepresented voices, and advancing more globally inclusive approaches to science communication and research.
Anna Abalkina for her crucial work and expertise on the darker sides of academic publishing, including paper mills and publication fraud.
The Stockholm Declaration and its authors, Bernhard Sabel and Dan Larhammar for issuing a bold call to reassess current publishing models and for outlining a concrete, global plan to address systemic failures in scholarly communication.
Safeguarding Scholarly Communication: Publishers Practices to Uphold Research Integrity – a new report by the STM Association, launched during the conference.
Research Ressource Identification (RRID) and its project lead Anita Bandrowski, recipient of the APE Award for Innovation in Scholarly Communication.
Pure.science, an AI-powered toolkit designed to orchestrate publishing systems and automate workflows and processes, and winner of the APE 2026 Startups to Watch Competition.
If any of these topics sparked your interest, follow Academic Publishing in Europe for updates and upcoming video recordings.
