Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers

Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
Name	Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
Abbreviation	ALPSP
Formation	1972
Type	Trade association
Headquarters	London
Region served	International
Membership	Learned societies, professional societies, university presses, scholarly publishers

Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers

The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers is an international trade association representing learned society and professional association publishers, university presses, and other scholarly communication organizations. It engages with stakeholders across the academic publishing ecosystem, including connections to research funders, librarys, and indexing services. The organisation promotes best practices in peer review, open access, and metadata standards while liaising with regulatory and standard-setting bodies.

History

Formed in 1972 amid changes affecting Royal Society and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers publication models, the organisation drew early participation from Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Wiley-Blackwell, Springer Nature, and Taylor & Francis Group. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s it responded to shifts driven by Digital Revolution, aligning with developments at PubMed, CrossRef, DOAJ, and Scopus. In the 2000s it engaged with initiatives connected to Budapest Open Access Initiative, Berlin Declaration, Plan S discussions, and policy shifts influenced by Wellcome Trust, European Research Council, and national research councils such as the UK Research and Innovation and National Institutes of Health. The association has periodically collaborated with professional bodies like Committee on Publication Ethics, International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers, and Association of American Publishers.

Membership and Governance

Membership comprises learned societies such as the Royal Society of Chemistry, American Chemical Society, Institute of Physics, and American Mathematical Society; university presses including Princeton University Press and Harvard University Press; and commercial partners like Elsevier and SAGE Publications. Governance structures mirror those of comparable organisations like the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and typically include an elected board, specialist committees, and advisory groups with representation from entities such as the British Library, European University Association, and Association of Research Libraries. The association operates under charities and company law frameworks similar to Companies House registrations and engages auditors and legal counsel experienced with Intellectual Property Office matters.

Activities and Services

The association provides training and professional development including courses on peer review workflows, metadata management, and digital preservation aligned with practices from ORCID, CrossMark, and CLOCKSS. It offers benchmarking and market intelligence reports comparable to outputs from PLOS and Altmetric, and runs accreditation-style schemes resembling ISO standards adoption. Member services include advice on contracts, licensing negotiations with consortia such as Jisc and Research Libraries UK, and support for transitions to open access models used by publishers listed in DOAJ and working with repositories like arXiv and Zenodo.

Advocacy and Policy

The association advocates on legal and policy issues affecting scholarly publishing, engaging with legislative forums including the European Parliament and national ministries, and interacting with policy-makers at bodies like the World Intellectual Property Organization and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It contributes to consultations on copyright reform, data protection regimes influenced by the General Data Protection Regulation, and research assessment policies such as those shaped by Research Excellence Framework and Horizon Europe. The association coordinates positions with stakeholder organisations including SPARC, COAR, EIFL, and ICMJE to influence guidelines on reproducibility, research integrity, and transparency.

Conferences and Events

The association organises annual conferences and specialist seminars attracting delegates from institutions such as MIT Press, Cornell University Press, National Academy of Sciences, European Molecular Biology Organization, and major publishing houses including Karger Publishers and MDPI. Events feature panels with leaders from Clarivate, Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, and funders like the Gates Foundation and National Science Foundation. Workshops cover technologies from XML workflows to AI-assisted editorial tools developed by companies including Manuscript Manager and Editorial Manager providers, and sessions often mirror programmatic themes found at Frankfurt Book Fair and London Book Fair.

Publications and Initiatives

The association publishes guidance, white papers, and policy briefs on topics such as open science, licensing, and metrics, comparable in purpose to outputs from COPE and OECD reports. Initiatives include training academies, mentorship programs for early-career professionals patterned after schemes at Royal Society and European Science Foundation, and collaborative projects with infrastructure providers like CrossRef, ORCID, DataCite, and OpenAIRE. The association also curates resources on ethical publishing practices referencing standards from COPE and promotes interoperability through advocacy for identifiers such as DOI and ISSN.

Category:Publishing organizations Category:Scholarly communication