From Innovation and AI to Burnout and Bluesky: Hot Topics from January 2025

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As we wrap up the first month of 2025, let’s look at some of the most interesting and thought-provoking discussions from the scholarly publishing community. These posts highlight ongoing conversations about innovation, mental health, and the evolving role of technology in scholarly publishing. If you had a rather busy month and missed these conversations, here’s a summary to get you caught up:

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Exploring AI’s role in academic writing: Insights from a three-day hackathon

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Niki Scaplehorn, Director of Content Innovation at Springer Nature, reflects on a three-day hackathon hosted by the University of Mannheim, which brought together over 20 students, postdocs, and early-career researchers to explore the potential of AI tools in academic writing. Participants were divided into two groups, only one of which was allowed to use AI tools. The goal was to assess how AI impacts writing productivity, quality, and consistency in producing high-quality publishable articles. The experiment revealed that AI tools can improve the efficiency of writing, enabling researchers to focus on their work while enhancing clarity, coherence, and structure. However, AI cannot replace intellectual creativity or ensure the integrity of research, so the importance of human oversight cannot be overlooked. Niki recommends the ethical and responsible use of AI. By ethically experimenting with various tools to tackle the challenges researchers face, we can gain deeper insights into the role publishers can play in supporting authors. This includes fostering access to knowledge and development while safeguarding the quality and integrity of science.

How the scholarly publishing community can “stamp out” paper mills

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In this Nature commentary, Anna Abalkina and her co-authors shed light on the alarming rise of paper mills—operations that produce fake or fraudulent research papers for profit. The authors explore how these unethical practices have begun to exploit the academic publishing system and compromise the integrity of scientific literature to an extent that “current self-correction mechanisms no longer work”. They highlight the challenges publishers face in detecting these fake papers, as they often include fabricated data, manipulated images, and falsified authorship. They also suggest a five-pronged strategy to quash paper mills. Efforts to counter this threat include enhanced screening processes even before research is published, increased collaboration across the publishing industry, and the adoption of technologies to identify anomalies. This piece emphasizes the urgent need for collective action to safeguard the credibility of scholarly communication.

Preventing burnout in scholarly publishing workplaces

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Occupational burnout is an issue that continues to affect professionals across industries, including scholarly publishing. In this insightful piece on The Scholarly Kitchen, Kali Jaye, a publishing industry veteran and empowerment coach, narrates her own experience with burnout to highlight the root causes of burnout among scholarly publishing professionals: “As the scholarly publishing industry sees rapid shifts in technology, work models, and business models, it can force us to feel as though we’re constantly adapting to the next change before we’ve mastered the previous one.” Kali emphasizes the need to incorporate practical strategies like setting boundaries around work hours, encouraging team collaboration, and providing access to mental health resources. With insights into both prevention and recovery, this article serves as a reminder that prioritizing employee well-being is not just a moral imperative but also essential for building resilient, productive teams.  

Community, context, and capital: What the APE conference in Berlin revealed

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In this blog post, Jason De Boer, Growth Director at Kriyadocs, shares his take on key panels from the Academic Publishing in Europe (APE) conference that was held in Berlin earlier this month. Jason offers his perspective on the themes discussed at APE 2025, particularly the focus on fostering community, addressing global contextual shifts, and generating sustainable value. He highlights the challenges publishers face in adapting to these changes while balancing their commercial goals with the needs of their audiences. He also highlights an interesting observation from a panelist – that scholarly publishers need to be challenged to innovate by the communities they serve and be adaptable as well as change ready. Jason also summarizes the healthy debates witnessed at APE 2025.

The role of and value added by scholarly publishers

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A panel moderated by Roger Schonfield at the APE 2025 Conference – Breaking Out of the Publishing Straightjacket: Rethinking Scholarly Outputs – touched upon the role of the publisher, specifically the value added by journals and publishers for providing narratives for scholarly outputs. This part of the discussion inspired Lou Peck, CEO of The International Bunch, to take a deeper look at the meaning and value of storytelling. In this post-session LinkedIn share, Lou urges the community to collectively understand and define what storytelling entails. Storytelling is profound. Effective storytelling engages the audience by fostering genuine connections, highlighting relatable experiences, and evoking emotion. It emphasizes the context and impact of the research, as well as the unique voices behind it, which highlights the critical role publishers play in bringing out the context behind and narrative around research. Lou’s post invited interesting follow-up discussions from the panelists and this conversation is worth a read.

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It is encouraging to see arguments that challenge the status quo and emphasize the need for change. Insights from conferences like APE 2025 underscore the importance of community and innovation. These topics will continue to be relevant this year, challenging us all to think critically, act collaboratively, and take a holistic approach to the way we do things in our industry.

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As we continue engaging with the community, we will continue to bring you some key industry discussions each month this year. Stay tuned!