Research & Scholarly Publishing Forum

Gareth Rapley is an experienced events leader, in which he has spent the last 13-years working for some of the largest and leading conference and exhibition organisers. His career has seen him work across multiple industry sectors in both the private and public sector, this has included agriculture, infrastructure, technology, fraud, and justice, with the largest time spent working with the energy sector and his current role sees him working with the publishing industry.

He has been able to work as part of award-winning teams and events, which have ranged in scale from small scale conferences up to large scale industry trade events, that has seen audiences vary in scale from 200 up to 150,000 attendees. The events have been a mixture of long-established and launches, in which he has played a role to help grow and develop these to meet industry and customer needs.

Prior to joining the events-industry he worked within media advertising for publishing directories and online platforms, which saw him take up roles ranging from administration through to sales leadership.

He has benefited from international experience having lived and worked in the Middle East for 3 and a half years, this saw him leading events in the Middle East, North, East and West Africa. He is now settled back in the U.K. having relocated in late 2021, with his wife and two children, in which they are currently expecting a third child and his biggest passion is sports, with the main area being football.  

Rob Johnson is the Managing Director of Research Consulting, a mission-driven business which works to improve the effectiveness and impact of research and scholarly communication. Rob began his career as a consultant with KPMG, the international professional services firm, and spent four years as Head of Research Operations at the University of Nottingham, UK.  Since founding Research Consulting in 2013 he has led more than 100 projects in the field of scholarly communication, advising globally-leading universities, research funders, intergovernmental bodies, publishers and software suppliers.  He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and holds an MSc in Higher Education Management from Loughborough University. 

Joyce is Group Head of Corporate Affairs for global publisher Springer Nature where she is also a member of the Executive Team and the company’s sustainability lead. She chaired STM’s communications group for several years and now serves on their Open Research committee. Prior to Springer Nature, Joyce held senior roles with global brands IHG (Intercontinental Hotel Group), The Walt Disney Company where she led Corporate Communications in EMEA and Eurodisney where she led communications based in Paris. A previous chair of London-based business partnership Urban Partners, Joyce is now a Trustee of the Marine Conservation Society.

Antonia has been at the helm of IOP Publishing since March 2021 having previously been Publishing Director.

As one of the world’s leading learned society publishers, IOPP’s mission is to deliver impact, recognition, and value to the scientific community.

Antonia is committed to increasing access, transparency, and inclusivity across the physical sciences and has nearly 30 years of STM publishing experience connecting business strategy and execution to deliver growth and transformation. 

She is currently President of the Publishers Association.

Before joining IOP Publishing in 2018, Antonia worked for Wiley and before that Blackwell Publishing, in a number of Senior Executive roles managing portfolios in Science, Health, Social Science, and Humanities across markets and product types.

Daniel Ebneter is the CEO and a member of the Management Board at Karger Publishers, a worldwide publisher of scientific and medical content based in Basel, Switzerland. He reports to Gabriella Karger who is the Chairwoman of the Board of Directors and the 4th generation publisher.

Prior to joining Karger in July 2017, Daniel Ebneter was a member of the executive board of a German psychology publishing group. Earlier positions include senior roles in business consultancy and industrial trading as well as teaching at universities. He has extensive professional experience in publishing and digital business. Daniel Ebneter holds a master's degree in applied physics, mathematics and computer science from the University of Bern, Switzerland, as well as an Executive MBA in integrated management from the Universities of Applied Sciences Bern and Fribourg, Switzerland. He was born in 1970 and is a Swiss citizen.

Charlotte is the founder and CEO of Uuna, a business change consultancy that works extensively in the Publishing industry helping organisations deliver measurably better change and communications.

She has over twenty years of experience delivering cross-cultural, global change for organisations from 10 to 130,000+ employees, with both large corporations and smaller non-profit and membership associations. Most recently she and her team have worked on transformation programmes at the American Physical Society (APS) and at Oxford University Press.

She specialises in Lean Change, which is a practical and people-centred approach to change. The aim is to work purposefully with the people impacted by the change to co-create solutions, which creates a more positive experience and accelerates the delivery of business benefits.

I have worked within publishing for 25 years. With a degree in Economics and Politics from SOAS and an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge, I originally started out in Trade publishing at Pan Macmillan, then moved over to work in the humanities and social sciences at Palgrave Macmillan. In 2005 I moved again to work as Publisher at Nature Publishing Group overseeing a large portfolio of STEM journals and continued as Editorial Director overseeing a €60 million portfolio under Springer Nature until 2021 when I decided to join Bloomsbury.

I have experience of running a large and expanding global content portfolio, experience of both academic and professional markets, book and born digital products, a collaborative, consultative and decisive leadership style, experience of international markets (including China and India), mergers and acquisitions and proven commercial ability and fiscal responsibility.

As Director of Academic and Professional Publishing at Bloomsbury, I am currently responsible for a team of over 100 editorial staff working across the academic and professional lists at Bloomsbury. I have a clear remit for strategic growth and development of the lists building on the ethos and culture of entrepreneurship and ambition Bloomsbury is known for.

I aim to embed this growth in meaningful deliverables across all facets of the business to ensure we amplify the voices of all authors across the subjects we publish in and deliver value and benefits for our audiences starting from school all the way through a lifelong journey of learning and discovery.

Christie Henry is Director of Princeton University Press, and joined in 2017 as the first woman to lead the press, which was founded in 1905. The Press is a staff choice hybrid organization with a team of 170 and three main locations: Oxford, Princeton and Beijing.

Christie has spent over 30 years in university press publishing. She is on the boards of several non profit publishers, including Rutgers University Press, Brandeis University Press, the American Philosophical Society Publishing, and the Center for Humans and Nature Press; on boards and committees of several independent bookstores, and publishing programs including Oxford Brookes. She also is an elected member of the Association of American Publishers Board, and on the Equity, inclusion and justice committee of the Association of University presses, for whom she also chaired the Task Force for Gender Equity and Cultures of Respect. She teaches in publishing programs globally, from Denver to Calcutta.

Since her arrival at PUP, the Press has launched a strategic Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Initiative, an audio imprint (Princeton Audio), a speakers agency (PUP Speaks), a Creative Media Lab, a Digital Marketing team, and a client sales and marketing program in China. In 2023 she received the Special Book Award in China for PUP’s demonstrated commitment to cultural exchange. 

She resides in Princeton with her family, and enjoys traveling the world in the pages of books and in the company of people of the book.

Responsible for content production and meta data systems at Elsevier, covering our books and journals titles. Have been working at Elsevier for 16 years and enjoy working in the STM Publishing sector and supporting the Scientific Research community.     

Previously worked in several different industry verticals, in a range of management roles in IT Infrastructure, Service Delivery and Software Development roles.

Mark Collins is Director of Academic at Virtusales Publishing Solutions, with over 20 years of experience in the publishing industry.

At Virtusales he collaborates with publishers to implement BiblioSuite. The software streamlines publishers' workflows, from ideation, metadata and asset management, through to production and royalty accounting. He has implemented this solution with global academic, professional and trade publishers including Elsevier, Bloomsbury, and Macmillan, as well as independent publishers and University Presses such as Harvard, Manchester, and Oxford University Press.

Prior to Virtusales, Mark held various roles at publishers, including Wiley, which focused on delivering global technology solutions to the business

Caroline Cummins is Director of Policy & Public Affairs at the Publishers Association, having joined the organisation in 2022. She leads policy development and government engagement on behalf of the association’s academic, consumer and education members and oversees the Academic Publishers Council and AI Taskforce. 

Caroline previously held policy, public affairs and communications roles across the creative industries and in Parliament. She holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Cambridge and master’s degree in political theory from the London School of Economics. 

Leslie Lansman B.A., J.D, LL.M has over 20 years of experience in copyright policy across the creative industries and in both London and New York. Currently, she holds the position of Global Permissions Manager at Springer Nature as well as serving as a Director of ALPSP and the chair of the ALPSP Policy Committee. Alongside her professional commitments, she remains deeply involved in academia, continuing to teach copyright law at a variety of institutions all reflecting her profound interest in the nuances of creator’s rights.

Simon joined Taylor & Francis in February 2016, and has since worked across the organization’s Peer Review, Editorial and Policy teams. Much of Simon’s current role entails analysis and interpretation of major Open Access policies issued from funders around the globe, exploring the effect of these policies on both Taylor & Francis and Scholarly Communications in its totality. He also has a keen interest in such varied topics as Research Integrity, DEIA within the context of research communication, and global policy developments affecting basic research. Simon sits on the Publisher’s Association Public Affairs Committee, the STM Brussels Group and ALPSP’s Policy Committee.

Before joining Taylor & Francis, Simon completed a Masters in Continental Philosophy at the University of Warwick, after earlier studies in Politics and Philosophy.

Will is Head of Policy and Communications at Publishers’ Licensing Services (PLS). He joined PLS in December 2021 after working in Westminster for 6 years as a researcher for Andrew Bingham MP and for former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Rt Hon John Whittingdale OBE MP.

Will’s main responsibilities are to engage with members of both houses in parliament on issues affecting copyright and licensing, to respond to relevant government consultations on behalf of PLS and ensure that PLS and mandating PLS publishers are updated on policy issues. 

Will is a member of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers and represents PLS at meetings of the British Copyright Council and Alliance for IP, as well as various publishing industry policy groups, and the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations (IFRRO). Additionally, Will is responsible for the coordination and delivery of PLS’ external relations strategy.

Richard joined RELX in January 2016 leading the European government relations teams in the UK, France, Germany, Netherlands and EU institutions.  He also has responsibility for leading RELX’s global Copyright Steering Committee and the company’s global policy on data protection.

In this role he continues to co-ordinate political engagement on policies including Artificial Intelligence, copyright, open science, privacy and anti-money laundering.

Prior to this role Richard was Chief Executive of The Publishers Association (2010-16), and in this role was concurrently Chair of the Alliance for Intellectual Property.

Previously he was Director of Public Affairs at the BPI (British Recorded Music Industry Ltd) (2006-10), following on from some 12 years working in various political consultancy roles with Fleishman-Hillard and Edelman.

Richard has a BA (Hons) in Philosophy, Politics & Economics, from Worcester College, Oxford University.  He was the Parliamentary Candidate for the Labour Party in South West Surrey in the 2010 General Election.

Catriona MacLeod Stevenson is General Counsel and Deputy CEO at the Publishers Association. As well as supporting overall organisational leadership and strategy, Catriona is responsible for the PA’s legal and content protection & enforcement functions and represents UK publishing in a variety of government and industry forums. Catriona is also a director of the British Copyright Council and represents UK interests as part of the International Publishers Association, and at WIPO. 

Before joining the publishing industry, Catriona was senior advisor to the recorded music industry’s global trade association, IFPI, and a successful IP litigator at Bristows LLP. Catriona has an honours degree in Law from the University of Edinburgh and a masters-level qualification in Intellectual Property Law and Practice from the University of Oxford. 

Priya joined Taylor & Francis in December 2019. She has extensive experience in developing and positioning global policies with the relevant stakeholders and decision-makers. Priya sits on the company’s Race and Ethnicity Network, the Publishers Association’s Academic Publishers Council and chairs STM’s Open Research Committee.

Before joining the world of publishing, Priya spent ten years at GlaxoSmithKline in a variety of government affairs, policy and market access roles. In her most recent role as Director of Government Affairs, she led the company’s positioning on international intellectual property and global health issues. She also gained experience in the external affairs function for the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations in Geneva.

Priya’s previous roles include working across a wide range of policy and government affairs functions at the World Health Organization, the European Commission and the UK Government‘s Department of Health. Her global and regional experience includes working in the Philippines, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium and France.

Priya has a Masters in Classics and Modern Languages from Oxford University. She speaks English and French and has good knowledge of Hindi and Spanish.

I have earned my PhD from Heidelberg University in Medical Informatics. My doctoral research revolved around modeling and simulation of complex self-organizing systems, particulars in silico human skin.

In my current position I am responsible as Vice President AI for all matters AI on Springer Nature group level. My professional career before has largely centered around data engineering and analytics roles. I enjoyed teaching as a freelance Lecturer of Medical Informatics and Software Engineering at different universities. Earlier in my career, I was a Freelance Data Scientist at the Steinbeis Center for Medical Systems Biology, Postdoctoral Researcher, and Research Associate at the National Center for Tumor Diseases. I also contributed as a Research Associate at the Institute for Medical Biometry and Informatics Heidelberg University, where I developed predictive models and simulations of complex systems

As SVP of Global Policy and Industry Relations at Elsevier, Victoria is responsible for managing Elsevier’s policies and strategy for access to research outputs, and for coordinating on global policy and legislative issues pertaining to Open Science. Victoria’s team also manages and coordinates Elsevier's partnerships within the publishing industry via trade and member associations. Victoria is also Chair of the Academic Publishers Council of the UK Publishers Association.

Victoria has a background in policy, publishing, and communications. Prior to joining Elsevier in 2018, Victoria managed policy at education publisher Pearson Plc. Her previous roles include Head of Communications at trade body The Publishers Association, and handling accounts as part of a Public Relations consultancy, specialising in media and copyright law firms.

Nick Lindsay has worked for The MIT Press since 2008 where he leads both the journals division and the Press’ open access efforts. He’s focused on developing new titles and business models to support the Press and has worked extensively with scholarly societies, university departments, and others on innovative journal projects, including Rapid Reviews: COVID-19.

Prior to MIT, Nick worked at the University of California Press in their journals group.

Nicola Ramsey is Chief Executive Officer at Edinburgh University Press, Scotland’s largest academic publisher and winner of the British Book Award for Academic, Educational and Professional Publisher of the Year. Leading the Press through a period of growth and change, Nicola is committed to a focus on making connections between people and ideas, aiming to build a culture based around collaboration, creativity and community. Prior to this role, Nicola was Head of Editorial (Books) at EUP and Publisher for their acclaimed Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies list. Here she commissioned numerous successful and ground-breaking books in the field, spanning history, religion, politics, art, language and literature. She has worked at EUP for over 25 years, since graduating from the University of Stirling with an MPhil in Publishing Studies.