Day 1 - Thursday, 13 November 2025

08:00-09:00

Check-in

9:00-09:10

Opening Speech
Stefan Tochev – CEO, MDPI

09:10-09:40

Keynote Talk
The Evolutionary Ecology of Scientific Publishing
Dr. Remedios Melero – Research Data Management, Scientific Publication, Repositories, and Open Access Policies, CSIC

Session 1: Innovations in Scholarly Publishing

09:40-10:00

A Community for Diamond Open Access – Efforts to Serve High-Quality and Equitable Publishing
Sofie Wennstrom – Nordic Capacity Centre for Diamond Open Access, Analyst, Stockholm University Library

10:00-10:20

How Can We Bridge the Gap Between Practitioners and Academia?
Raji Sivaraman – SDGPublishers Compact Fellow, Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University

10:20-10:40

eLife's PRC Publication Model
Michael Markie – Head of Innovation Initiatives, eLife Sciences Publications

10:40-11:10

Coffee Break

Session 2: Quality and Editorial Concepts in Scholarly Publishing

11:10-11:40

Keynote Talk
Quality in the Era of Quantity: Two sides of the Same Science
Dr. Alexandre Lopez-Borrull – UOC Open University of Catalonia

11:40-12:00

Quality Standards and Sustainability in Diamond Open Access Publishing
Iva Grabaric Andonovski –President of the Croatian Association for Scholarly Communication (CROASC / ZNAK), Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology, University of Zagreb

12:00-12:20

Peer Review: Ideals and Practical Dilemmas
Pauliina Raento – Finnish Association for Scholarly Publishing

12:20-12:40

Integrity by Design: Editorial Quality in the Age of AI
Sami Benchekroun – CEO, Morressier

12:40 - 14:00

Lunch Break

14:00-15:00

Panel Discussion
Look into the next 5 or 10 years, what would be the most anticipated change in sustainable academic publishing?

Moderator: Raji Sivaraman
Panelists:
Sofie Wennstrom
Michael Markie
Dr. Remedios Melero
Pauliina Raento
Iva Grabaric Andonovski

Session 3: Generative Artificial Intelligence in Scholarly Publishing

15:00-15:20

The Vanishing Author? Preserving Authorship in the Age of AI
Leslie Lansman – Head of Permissions and Licensing, Springer Nature; Director of ALPSP (Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers)

15:20-15:40

GenAI as an Enabler, Not a Threat: Building a Sustainable SDG Classifier at CABI
Gary Leicester – Publishing Data Lead, CABI

15:40-16:00

The AI Revolution in Publishing
Dr. Milos Cuculovic – Head of Technology Innovation, MDPI

16:00-16:30

Coffee Break

16:30-17:30

Panel Discussion
Will Gen AI kill the editorial publishing?

Moderator: Nikesh Gosalia
Panelists:
Sami Benchekroun
Leslie Lansman
Gary Leicester
Dr. Milos Cuculovic

17:30-17:40

Closing Remarks

19:00

Conference Dinner

Day 2 - Friday, 14 November 2025

09:30 - 10:00

Keynote Talk
Legal and Intellectual Property Challenges
Dr. Ignasi Labastida – Head of the Research Unit, Learning and Research Resources Centre (CRAI), University of Barcelona

10:00 - 10:30

Keynote Talk
Value-Driven Publishing: Reputation, Resilience, and Growth in Challenging Contexts
Silvano Bonfatti – Product Manager, JAMS (Journal & Article Management System), MDPI
Dr. Ismail Badran, Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry, An-Najah National University

10:30 - 11:00

Coffee Break

Session 4: Scientometrics Using Open Data

11:00 - 11:20

Using Global Overlay Maps and OpenAlex for Responsible Research Assessment
Dr. Robin Haunschild – Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research

11:20 - 11:40

Scientometrics in the Open Science Era
Dr. Ikram Jebabli – Rabat Business School, University of Rabat

11:40 - 12:00

Scientometrics using Open Data, opportunities and limitations
Simon Porter – VP Research Futures, Digital Science

12:00 - 12:10

Closing remarks
Stefan Tochev - CEO, MDPI

12:10 - 14:00

Lunch and Dismiss

14:00-15:00

JAMS Workshop
How Helpful Can AI Recommendation Systems Be for Peer Reviewer Search? A Hands On Workshop
Note: Please bring your laptops to the workshop, as it will be an interactive session with hands-on activities.