The 11th ALPSP Annual Conference and Awards 2018 was held at the Beaumont Estate, Old Windsor, UK from 12 -14 September. The conference attracted a high level audience of over 300 people from all sectors of the scholarly communications industry. Spread over three days, the event provided a relaxed and friendly environment in which to share information and knowledge, learn about new initiatives, as well as engage in open discussion on the challenges and opportunities facing publishing today. Especially, the conference programme offered contrasting views on the trend towards open access mandates, explored collaboration, peer review, ethics, the digital humanities, new technologies and tools, as well as the hot topic of harassment and gender bias in publishing. The three key themes were “Openness and Policy”, “Business and Technology” and “Researchers and Ethics”. Many aspects of “open” and transparency, including funder policies and mandates and how these are affecting publishers of all sizes, researchers in all disciplines, and various regional markets were discussed.

New technologies driving innovation in content creation and content consumption, including practical applications for Artificial Intelligence and blockchain were explored throughout the conference via pre-conference workshops, casual discussions during breaks and demo presentations.

The publisher role in supporting researcher and author workflows around journals and books across all disciplines, including data and metrics, as well as researcher and author experiences during peer review, ensuring a diverse environment with freedom to publish was examined.

For more details about the 2018 conference are available at https://events.bizzabo.com/alpsp18/home