STM Master Class Europe: Developing Managers of the Future
15 – 18 September 2008
St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, UK

Register before 30 June for discount!

Course Director: Richard Balkwill, Course Director, STM Master Class

General overview
The STM Master Class has established itself as a benchmark of exciting and innovative teaching and learning in strategic business skills. The STM Master Class attracts senior and influential speakers from within and outside STM industry whose ideas challenge the delegates to tackle today’s key publishing issues – achieving innovation, tackling change, evaluating risk, licensing and acquiring intellectual property, managing relationships with key stakeholders, and enhancing brand values.

For the ninth consecutive year, The Master Class is again being held in Oxford. Every year feedback from the students has been positive and every year the committee of senior publishers, commit to adapting the course to the industry’s constantly changing needs.

The emphasis is on strategy. Once again the training consultant Richard Balkwill supported by Peter Ashman of BMJ Publishing, Jon Walmsley of Wiley-Blackwell, Ian Bannerman of Taylor & Francis, Jane Thurgood of Oxford Brookes University and Jim Milne of Elsevier has provided a programme of presentations and course providing a context for serious thought and a challenging experience.

Who is the course for?

• Tomorrow’s international senior managers in all STM publishing functions: marketing/sales, business development and editorial.
• Managers will have between three – five years’ experience, including some responsibility for managing budgets, resources and staff.
  

Benefits of participating in the course

• More confidence in making strategic decisions
• Original and innovative ideas to manage change
• A radically different way of looking at the STM market
• Opportunities to network with high level people in our industry
• Greater willingness to review models and apply techniques from outside our industry
• Membership in a growing community of highly motivated and committed former delegate

Provisional Programme
Monday 15 September
Keynote introduction: ‘Publishing in an age of uncertainty’
Michael Mabe, Chief Executive, International STM Association

Dinner guests of honour – Peter Ward, British Dental Association
Roger Ainsworth, Master of St Catherine’s College

Tuesday 16 September
‘Risk Analysis and Investment Strategies’
Chris Blake, Chairman, Earthscan

‘Data gathering and the commercialisation of assets’
Richard Kidd, Royal Society of Chemistry

Wednesday 17 September
'Managing the digital rights environment’
Sue Joshua, Director of Legal Affairs, John Wiley & Sons
Alicia Wise, Chief Executive, Publishers Licensing Society

‘Building resources in times of change’
Patrick Thibor, Director, Springer Verlag

‘Taking strategic investment decisions’
Susanna Kempe, T & F Informa

Dinner guests of honour
Professor Janet Beer, Vice Chancellor, Oxford Brookes University
Fiona Godlee, Editor, British Medical Journal

Thursday 18 September
‘Innovation and new enterprises’
Hugh Look, Senior Consultant, Rightscom
 

Some features of the course

• An emphasis on thinking strategically, not on honing process skills
• A superb range of senior high-profile speakers
• Demanding group work with case studies that brings to life course themes and topics
• A clearer vision of who our partners and stakeholders are, and what they might want
• Contrasting points of view from stakeholders, customers and publishers
  

Key themes

• The pace of change continues to make demands on STM managers; the change is disruptive, but offers opportunities for entrepreneurial innovation
• Managers increasingly have to respond to demands to redefine their business strategy
• Who are our stakeholders? These partners are more than customers. What do they need from us, and how are changes in research methodology impacting upon our business?
• The need to understand and manage risk, and to make substantial investment commitments without all the data and facts
• Are we equipping future managers with the aptitude and skills to manage change innovatively?
• The legal and rights environment is changing and putting new pressure on how we negotiate licenses and agreements

Preliminary Topics

Finance and Risk
Risk analysis and making strategic decisions – internal investment managers within publishing give a view

Stakeholder Relations
What do societies and other partners want from the publishing industry?

Changing Research Needs
How is the way researchers and publishers work together changing? What do institutions and research communities actually want from the publishing industry?

Disruption and Innovation
What are they key issues threatening our industry? How can we create a new vision for an enterprise? Presenting viewpoints that break the mould

Managing Rights and Assets
How the legal situation impinges on our business, and how we deal with rights and licenses
Covering the legal/contractual issue arising from DRM/DAM

People and Change Management
Giving STM managers the skills to build and develop people during periods of change

Venue
The venue is the modernist St. Catherine’s college in the university. Excellent facilities provides the ideal setting in which to benefit from three days of high-powered presentations, followed by the challenge of putting new ideas into practice through a sequence of stimulating and demanding case studies. There is also ample opportunity to share ideas with an international mix of high-calibre STM managers.

Registration Fee (includes accommodation)           

                        Before 30 June 2008        After 30 June 2008
Member                            €2400                  €2800
Non-Member                     €3000                  €3600