Learned societies in the European scholarly communication landscape
Abstract
Presentation at the “Seeking to make the life of the learned society publisher easier” webinar organised by DIAMAS and PALOMERA projects 10 September 2024. Includes an analysis of how institutional publishers (IPs) that are learned societies differ from other IPs based on a sample of 546 IPs, of which 65 (12%) are societies, participating in the DIAMAS landscape survey. Summary of key characteristics of society publishers:• Less often part of a larger parent organisation and operate with smaller budgets• Fewer employed staff and greater reliance on in-kind support• Funding skewed toward member fees, income from events, time-limited grants, and public funding• Publish on average fewer journals and offer less training/support services
Full text
Learned societies in the European scholarly communication landscape Janne Pölönen DIAMAS & PALOMERA Webinar “Seeking to make the life of the learned society publisher easier” 10 September 2024 14.00-15.30 CEST
DIAMAS D5.2 National overviews on sustaining institutional publishing in Europe • 10 country case studies exploring how institutional publishing operations are funded, sustained, and influenced by policy and publishing traditions. • Qualitative information from country experts and Landscape survey on 1) scholarly publishing, 2) open access, and 3) institutional publishing environment •Quantitative information on 1) number, publishers, fields and languages of journals, 2) higher-education systems
Role of learned societies differs between countries Publisher types for journals in Ulrichsweb: •46% Professional •10% Society •26% University •14% Univ press •5% not determined Publisher types for journals in Web of Science: •74% Professional •9% Society •17% University
Societies collaborate extensively in the international journal publishing landscape •21,886 journal indexed in Web of Science •74% professional publishers •17.2% universities •8.7% by societies •29% of journals involve societies as publisher or collaborator •Figure based on manuscript prepared for submission - early version of the study: Taşkın, Z., Pölönen, J., Kulczycki, E. & Laakso, M. (2023). Learned societies as publishers in the international journal landscape. Proceedings of ISSI 2023 – the 19th International Conference of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics, 2, 455–461. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8429014
DIAMAS D2.3 Final IPSP landscape Report: Institutional Publishing in the ERA
Comparing learned societies and other type of IP’s = Institutional Publishers (N=546) Focus of the following analysis: 546 IPs, of which •65 societies (12 %) •481 other organisations (88 %)
Society IP’s have more rarely a parent organisation and have smaller budgets
Society IP’s have less employed staff and rely more on in-kind support
Society IP’s rely more on member fees, event organisation, time-limited grants, public funding mainly unspecified or member fees