Conversations, Collaboration, Community – Insights from a Transformative Year in Scholarly Publishing

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In 2024, the Kriyadocs team participated in several key industry events, such as the STM Frankfurt Conference, Researcher to Reader Conference, the ISMTE Annual Meeting, and our very own Publisherspeak series of community events in London and Washington DC. These meetings offered invaluable opportunities to engage with peers, share innovations, and reflect on the future of our industry. As the year draws to a close, we find ourselves reflecting on the insights we gained from these interactions. These insights highlight not only the industry’s collective priorities but also the role Kriyadocs plays in addressing them. Here are some of the key themes that emerged during the year: 

Peer review: A system in transformation 

As the cornerstone of academic validation, peer review has been the focus of a lot of conversations. The evolution of peer review continues – not just the process itself but also its method of adoption. Recurring peer review related themes include:

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• Challenges: Issues such as biases, delays, building reviewer pools, and lack of training for early-career researchers (ECRs) hinder the current peer review system. Designing robust solutions to identify and prevent peer review fraud is an area of focus. 

• Innovations: We are also seeing several innovations in peer review, such as the adoption of automated integrity checks, AI-driven reviewer matching, and AI-assisted peer review tools. Newer models of peer review (such as collaborative, post-publication, open) are increasingly being adopted to mitigate the challenges associated with traditional models. 

• Training and mentorship: Initiatives like editorial fellowships and student peer review programs are essential for expanding and diversifying the reviewer pool.  

• Reviewer recognition: Given that peer review is often offered pro bono, the need to recognize reviewer effort is being increasingly acknowledged. The debate around paid peer review continues, and APC waivers, credit schemes, and small-scale honoraria are being considered as benefits for reviewers.

It was exciting for us to be a part of these discussions. For instance, our Growth Director, Jason De Boer, was a co-chair of the Peer Review Innovations Workshop at the Researcher to Reader Conference in February 2024. At Kriyadocs, our focus has been on creating efficient publication workflows with best-in-class tools to streamline submissions, reduce delays, and enhance transparency in peer review. These insights will help us make our peer review workflow management solutions more robust.

AI: Friend or foe? The jury is still out

Unsurprisingly, AI has been the dominant theme of discussions at industry events this year. From content generation to data analysis, AI appears to have permeated all areas of scholarly content creation, publication, and dissemination. Here’s what we picked up from the conversations we joined:

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• Opportunities: AI is being embraced for tasks like automated checks on research integrity, enhancing metadata workflows, spell-checks, and language polishing. For publishers dealing with high submission volumes, AI offers scalability and efficiency. 

• Ethical concerns: Conversations often revolved around the need for responsible AI use. Using generative AI to write or review manuscripts from scratch, rather than as an editorial/writing aid, is a contentious issue. Frameworks like the EU AI Act and Singapore’s Text and Data Mining (TDM) exception were discussed as guiding principles. At this point, the larger question is: How do we ensure AI supports—rather than undermines—trust and integrity in research? This will continue to be a dominant theme for future discussions around AI in 2025.

At Kriyadocs, we recognize that AI’s promise lies in its ability to complement human expertise, not replace it, and we look forward to engineering leaner workflow systems with AI as a powerful ally. We believe that AI, when used responsibly, can complement human expertise, making scholarly publishing more efficient and inclusive. Although there are serious concerns about the risks posed by AI, it is increasingly becoming an integral part of how we do things.‍

Safeguarding trust in a changing landscape 

Maintaining trust is paramount in scholarly publishing, and this year underscored the urgency of addressing research misconduct and integrity. A few commonly discussed themes stood out for us:

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• Rising concerns: The rapid emergence of papermills as well as serious issues like ORCID manipulation and data fabrication have exposed serious vulnerabilities in the system. There is an urgent need for the community to collaboratively develop solutions to identify and prevent breaches. 

• Human-AI collaboration: While AI tools have proven invaluable for detecting integrity risks at scale, industry experts emphasize that human oversight remains irreplaceable for nuanced decision-making.  

• Proactive measures: Addressing research integrity issues cannot be a purely reactive endeavour. As a community, scholarly publishers are exploring the use of upstream tools (such as Kriyadocs Presubmit) to try and support good actors and highlight potential misconduct earlier in the workflow. There is a general consensus that institutional and certain national governments need to rethink incentives that create a 'publish or perish' culture within academia.

It has been encouraging to see efforts to build scalable solutions to help journals mitigate integrity related risks upstream, and the emphasis is increasingly on combining automation with expert intervention to safeguard the credibility of published scholarly output.

Balancing accessibility and sustainability through open access

Open Access (OA) continues to be a focal point for publishers, raising important questions about financial viability and equitable access. We followed these discussions closely, because as advocates for accessible knowledge, we remain committed to empowering publishers with tools and solutions that align with their OA goals. This year, the scholarly publishing community talked about:

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• Publisher challenges: For many publishers, the shift to OA has required rethinking revenue models (such as Hybrid, Subscribe to Open, and Diamond) without compromising operational sustainability. Going forward this will continue to be a focus area. 

• Opportunities for innovation: There is a continued focus on solutions that help streamline workflows for OA submissions. Kriyadocs is proud to partner with tools and platforms like OA Switchboard, CCC RightsLink, and ChronosHub to help ease administrative burden and enhance accessibility.

• Global engagement: There is also greater acknowledgement of the importance of fostering a more inclusive OA ecosystem that supports researchers from underrepresented regions.

Building an inclusive scholarly publishing ecosystem 

The need for inclusivity and collaboration across borders was yet another recurring theme in 2024. Key discussions revolved around:

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• Diverse perspectives: It is critical to recognize and address cultural differences in peer review practices and editorial boards to create globally standardized frameworks. 

• Mentorship programs: Structured training for ECRs and custom mentorship initiatives are a great way to expand and diversify reviewer pools. Sharing his recent experience as an ALPSP mentor, Jason De Boer says, “One of the most fulfilling experiences of 2024 has been the opportunity to participate in the ALPSP Mentorship Scheme as a mentor. The insights I have gained from my brilliant mentee, as well as the opportunity to provide advice and act as a sounding board for ideas, have been terrific. So much so, we will be continuing our mentorship relationship into 2025!”

• Standardization efforts: Community-led initiatives to develop best practices for ethical research and publishing could go a long way toward fostering inclusivity and global collaboration. Some examples that come to mind here are the resources released by the Committee on Publication Ethics and the Best Practice Guide for Research Integrity and Ethics.

The Kriyadocs team was particularly inspired by these discussions. We are always keen to contribute to initiatives that promote inclusivity and diversity. For example, our bilingual publication workflow, which facilitates the simultaneous dissemination of manuscripts in a source language and English, illustrates our commitment to increasing diversity and accessibility. The Kriyadocs Presubmit tool that is designed to empower non-native English speaking/writing researchers and early-career stage researchers showcase their work effectively is another example of our efforts in this area.

Industry consolidation: Adapting to a dynamic landscape 

As the industry evolves, consolidation trends and shifting dynamics are reshaping the scholarly publishing ecosystem. Some of the key discussions in this area touched upon: 

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• Consolidation and innovation: Larger publishers continue to acquire smaller players. Technology solution providers and exciting start-ups are entering the scholarly publishing space.

• Legacy system challenges: Publishers are increasingly seeking agile, modern platforms to replace outdated legacy systems. 

• Deeper focus on author experience: More and more publishers are acknowledging the central role authors play in the publishing ecosystem. There is a greater focus on enriching author experience (AX) at each stage in the publication cycle, for example, by setting up clear submission guidelines, ensuring smooth author communication, and optimizing publication turnaround times. Highlighting Kriyadocs’ focus on engineering solutions that enable high-quality AX, Ravi Vekataramani, CEO of Kriyadocs and Exeter Premedia Services, says, “Our industry prides itself on making the researcher’s job easier. We have streamlined processes and automated our systems to help researchers share their work with the world faster. How can we get better at this? A unified ecosystem from submission to publication with intuitive author interfaces, reviewer tools, and editor workflows is the need of the hour. This will go a long way towards making an efficient process enjoyable as well.”

• A sense of community: Despite competition, a spirit of camaraderie remains strong at industry events, with stakeholders working together to address shared challenges. This sense of fellowship was evident in the collaborative sessions at our Publisherspeak events, where the scholarly publishing community proactively contributed insights and solutions for specific issues.

These trends align with Kriyadocs’ mission to be an active, collaborative partner to the scholarly community, providing future-ready, scalable solutions that meet the evolving needs of publishers.

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If we were to describe 2024 using one word, we would go with “transformative”. From reimagining peer review, exploring the potential of AI and championing research integrity, to fostering global collaboration and embracing the possibilities offered by digital transformation, the scholarly publishing industry is navigating an exciting period of change. 

At Kriyadocs, we are proud to contribute to these discussions and innovative solutions that empower stakeholders across the scholarly publishing ecosystem. Being part of a rich series of events in 2024 has been a humbling and enriching experience. We look forward to more great conversations in 2025.