STM Association

STM Association The STM Association is an international trade association representing leading scholarly Elsevier publishers, Springer Nature, Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor & Francis, and other major publishing houses active in scientific, technical, and medical publishing. It engages with intergovernmental bodies such as United Nations, European Commission, World Health Organization, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on issues including intellectual property, open access, digital preservation, and research integrity. The Association liaises with research funders like the Wellcome Trust, National Institutes of Health, European Research Council, and infrastructures including Crossref, ORCID, DataCite, and PubMed Central.

History

Founded in 1998 by a coalition of commercial scholarly publishers influenced by developments at International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers and trends from the rise of the World Wide Web, the Association emerged amid debates involving Berne Convention, TRIPS Agreement, and the expansion of digital journals such as The Lancet, Nature, and Science (journal). Early work intersected with initiatives like Project MUSE, JSTOR, and policy shifts following reports from Royal Society and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Major milestones include engagement with the Wellcome Trust open access policies, contributions to the development of Crossref metadata standards, and responses to legislative proposals in the European Parliament and the United States Congress regarding copyright and text-and-data mining.

Mission and Activities

The Association's stated mission emphasizes supporting scholarly communication by working on interoperability with services such as Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, and Dimensions (database). It advocates positions on intellectual property with stakeholders like World Intellectual Property Organization and courts including the European Court of Justice, while promoting practices related to research integrity referenced by the Committee on Publication Ethics and standards set by the International Organization for Standardization. Activities include negotiating shared industry responses to policies from agencies such as the National Science Foundation, coordinating preservation strategies with CLOCKSS and Portico, and developing best practices alongside organizations such as SPARC and COAR.

Membership and Governance

Membership comprises major commercial and society publishers including American Chemical Society, Royal Society (United Kingdom), IEEE, BMJ Group, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and regional publishers from Asia, Africa, and Latin America such as Springer Japan, SciELO, and FAPESP-linked outlets. Governance is typically overseen by a Board of Directors drawn from member organizations, with executive leadership interacting with advisory bodies like the European Research Council, the Council of Europe, and legal advisers experienced with the Copyright Directive (EU). The Association operates working groups focused on metadata, legal affairs, and open access that collaborate with partners including COPE, NISO, and CHORUS.

Publications and Standards

The Association publishes policy briefings, white papers, and guidance on topics affecting Nature Publishing Group-level publishing operations, including recommendations on machine-readable licenses compatible with Creative Commons, harmonization of identifiers such as Digital Object Identifier established by International DOI Foundation, and technical guidance aligned with NISO standards. It contributes to standards for article XML workflows used by publishers like PLOS and Frontiers and promotes persistent identifiers used by ORCID and Crossref. Position papers address issues raised by funders such as Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and initiatives like Plan S, and propose interoperable approaches to content licensing, metadata exchange, and long-term archiving with services like LOCKSS and Portico.

Conferences and Events

The Association organizes and participates in conferences, workshops, and roundtables alongside events such as Frankfurt Book Fair, London Book Fair, PIDapalooza, and meetings of International Association of STM Publishers (old name), attracting stakeholders from publishers, libraries like British Library, funders, and technical providers including Crossref and DataCite. Its events often feature panels on policy developments from the European Commission, technological sessions involving AI vendors, and collaborative forums with bodies like COPE and SPARC to address publishing ethics, access models, and interoperability.

Category:Publishing organizations