New Directions: Consolidation, Competition, and Cooperation

Duration: 1 hr 10 mins
Publication Date: October 2024

About the session

As the long tail of smaller publishers shortens, new entrants and partnerships are on the rise, plus new competitive dynamics are reshaping our industry. This panel brings together the perspectives of an information scientist, a marketing director, and an industry expert who will discuss the cycle and barriers of a partnership, a bold, new coalition built on purpose above profit, and the consolidation happening in publishing/technology and its impact on competition today. The panel will address problems in common that scholarly communication stakeholders face and would be better solved through partnerships, and the barriers to consolidating these partnerships due to challenges such as power imbalance, conflicts of interest, and competition.

Collection

New Directions (2024)

Speakers

Senior Consultant, Clarke & Esposito
Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Senior Director, Publications, American Political Science Association
SVP, Editorial Development, Taylor and Francis
Director of Open Science and Publishing Innovation, AIP

Sara Rouhi is the new Director of Open Science and Publishing Innovation, reporting to Chief Publishing Officer, Penelope Lewis. Rouhi is charged with developing new publishing models and sustainable business strategies to accelerate AIPP’s mission to advance open, equitable research communication and empower researchers to accelerate global progress. Sara joins AIP Publishing from Public Library of Science (PLOS) where she was Regional Director, Publishing Development, The Americas. In this role she focused on engaging with high-level stakeholders, including funders, policymakers, and institutional leaders in local scholarly communication ecosystems. Before this role she built up PLOS’ institutional business models and partnership base as Director of Strategic Partnerships, launching three new, non-APC business models (including the 2021 ALPSP Innovation in Publishing award winner, Community Action Publishing) and implemented over 200+ partnerships globally. Sara is active in the scholarly communications community as a volunteer and thought leader, speaking frequently on open access, equity in publishing, and diversity in scholarly communications. She is was Board Member for the Society of Scholarly Publishing (SSP) from 2022-204 and was the recipient of SSP’s Emerging Leader award in 2015. She is active in the Washington DC improv comedy scene with her troupe Sistine Robot and she tweets/bleets @RouhiRoo and @RouhiRoo.bsky.social.