APE 2021: The New Face of Trust

A very short Welcome presented by Arnoud de Kemp, Founder of APE and Chairman of the Program Committee

Greetings and Opening presented by Prof. Dr. Christoph Markschies, President of the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Berlin

Moderator: Prof. Dr. Ulrich Dirnagl, Quest - BIH Center for Transforming Biomedical Research, Berlin Institute for Health Research, Charité, Berlin, also representing the Berlin University Alliance (BUA)

Keynote: Restoring Trust in Published Research
Presented by Prof. Dr. Malcolm MacLeod (BSc(Hons) MBChB PhD FRCP Ed), Professor of Neurology and Translational Neuroscience, Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, Edinburgh

Author Checklists (ARRIVE, CONSORT, et al.): Quality Assurance or Box-Ticking Exercises?
Presented by Dr. Nathalie Percie du Sert, Head of Experimental Design and Reporting, National Centre for the 3Rs, London

Does Peer Review live up to its Promise?
CON: Dr. Remco Heesen, The University of Western Australia, Perth
PRO: Dr. Deborah J. Sweet, VP of Editorial, Cell Press, Cambridge, MA

Preprints and the Crowdsourcing of Peer Review
Anne Scheel, M.Sc., University of Eindhoven (Early Career Researcher)

Preregistration: A Silver Bullet to increase Research Quality?
Dr. Stavroula Kousta, Chief Editor, Nature Human Behaviour, Nature Research, London

Safeguarding Research Quality before the Horse is out of the Barn, that is: a paper submitted
Anton Bespalov, Founder, Partnership for Assessment and Accreditation of Scientific Practice (PAASP), Heidelberg

Moderator: Anne Kitson, SVP Cell Press and The Lancet, Elsevier, London
Scientific publishing is transforming rapidly into an OA dominated landscape. Since the advent of access programs such as Research4Life, which bridges the access gap for researchers in developing countries, we have seen a steady increase in research output from the global south—a 10.5% growth in output between 2009-2018. However, this positive trend towards a more inclusive research ecosystem could be undermined by the OA cost burden that would be placed by authors in developing countries. From the September 2020 white paper co-published by the International Center for the Study of Research and STM, we know that in 2018, 75% of researchers from developing countries still published in subscription journals. How can the publishing community ensure a more—rather than less--inclusive OA playing field for the Global South? Panelists will bring researcher, editor, publisher and Research4Life perspectives to map out the burning issues and best solutions.

Andrea Powell, Outreach Director and Publisher Coordinator, Research4Life, STM

Dr. Haseeb Md. Irfanullah, Independent Consultant - Environment, Climate Change, & Research System, Bangladesh

Prof. Yap Boum, Regional Africa Representative, Epicentre (MSF)

Dr. Uduak Okomo, Postdoctoral Fellow based in The Gambia, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Moderator: Liz Ferguson, VP, Open Research, Wiley, Oxford
The session builds on the numerous discussions over the last couple of years on how to make OA work in an equitable and sustainable manner for selective journals across a widely divergent global open access landscape. A principled discussion on the inherent value of the different dimensions of selectivity applied by academic journals (e.g. for quality of research, for the importance (which includes a number of different definitions), for the depth and breadth of the research findings, for the integrity of the research, for its novelty/conceptual advance, or for its newsworthiness, etc.) seems timely to reaffirm the value of this selectivity and to ensure OA moves away from being labelled a process uniquely suited for lower selectivity publishing. In particular, we also want to focus on how to make highly selective OA work.
Panelists will evaluate content related bottlenecks in current OA business models and will provide recommendations and examples for solutions.

Publishing in OA Journals and Researcher Choice
Dr. Shina Caroline Lynn Kamerlin, Professor of Structural Biology, Uppsala University
Dimensions of Selectivity and how they add Value
Dr. Bernd Pulverer, Chief Editor of The EMBO Journal and Head of Scientific Publications, EMBO, Heidelberg
Financial Transparency and the Cost of Quality
Alison Mudditt, CEO, Public Library of Science (PLOS), San Francisco, CA
Crisis in Communication: the Functions and Future of selective Journals
Dr. James Butcher, VP Journals, Nature Portfolio and BMC, Springer Nature, London

Dr. Manuela Gerlof, VP Publishing Humanities & Social Sciences, De Gruyter, Berlin and Prof. Dr. Andreas Degkwitz, Director, Humboldt University Library, Berlin
Scholarly communication in HSS is shifting rapidly towards digital, open and transparent exchange, resulting in a growing need for alternative paths of Open Access transformation and new, innovative publishing formats. In addition to new infrastructures parallel to the commercial publishing industry, more and more institutional and academic stakeholders are collaborating with publishers based on a shared set of values and mutual trust. This session introduces inspiring collaborations that address the specific needs of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

'Subscribe to Open' as an alternative path to OA Transition
Dr. Kamran Naim, Head of Open Science, CERN, Geneva
Collaborative Open Access: The National Contact Point Open Access
Dirk Pieper, University Library Bielefeld
Data-driven Publishing and scalable Reading: co-designing the 'Journal of Digital History'
Prof. Dr. Andreas Fickers, Director, Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History, University of Luxembourg
The Future of the Monograph: long-form Scholarship in the digital Age
Ros Pyne, Director, Open Access Books and Book Policies, Springer Nature, London

Moderated by Magdalena Skipper, Editor-in-Chief, Nature, London
The already rising adoption of preprints across numerous research communities has seen an astronomic increase during the COVID-19 pandemic owing to the need for rapid information sharing during. The benefit is clear and yet it is arguably especially crucial within the health and clinical sciences that scientific findings are appropriately scrutinised before made public. Peer review, considered the cornerstone of scholarly publishing, has not been without its critics, leading to a proliferation of models and experiments. Panellists will share their views on the contribution of preprints to scholarly communication within the community and beyond, and discuss the present and the future of peer review, and its potential.

Dr. Theodora Bloom, Executive Editor, The BMJ, London
Prof. Dr. Christopher Aiden-Lee Jackson, Equinor Professor of Basin Analysis, Imperial College, London
Dr. Sowmya Swaminathan, Head of Editorial Policy & Research Integrity, Nature Research, Springer Nature USA
Rebecca Lawrence, Managing Director, F1000 Research, London
Dr. Thomas Lemberger, Deputy Head of Scientific Publications, EMBO, Heidelberg

Presented by: Lauren Kane, President, Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) and Chief Strategy Officer, Morressier, Washington, DC

There is no mistaking 2020 for just another year. The extraordinary challenges posed by Covid-19 and ensuing public health and financial crises will cast a long shadow for many years to come. 2020 also acted as watershed moment for scholarly communications, forcing long running debates surrounding equitable access, the rapid dissemination of research, and the politicization of science into the spotlight. Never has scholarly communications been more relevant; never has the work being done to support the global research community more important. The question now becomes, where do we go from here? Do we return to existing structures and norms, or does this become an opportunity for rethinking and reinvention? Kane will explore the resiliency of this community in the face of challenges new and old, and the potential for a more collaborative, interoperable, and inclusive future.

Presented by Frank Vrancken Peeters, CEO, Springer Nature, Berlin

The evolution of scholarly communications has accelerated in recent years, and 2020 has only increased this trend. Opening up access to research publications, simplifying or customising the digital experience, or improving the speed of publishing – publishers need to work in partnership with institutions, funders, and new players in the market to develop solutions for researchers. This keynote will explore how partnerships can work in practice and help advance open science, publishing and the research system as a whole.