STM Dinner & Conference 2024 | Frankfurt

The STM Annual Conference in Frankfurt returns on 14 - 15 October 2024 with a vibrant mix of interactive sessions, expert panelists, idea-sharing, and — perhaps most importantly — connection. This year's theme: Advancing trusted research in the AI era.

This is a must-attend event for publishers, researchers, librarians, and all professionals committed to advancing scholarly communications. Conveniently held the day before the Frankfurt Book Fair, as STM has done for decades, it’s a wonderful opportunity to come together as the industry thought leaders, movers, and shakers. Now. Let's move and shake.

Explore the program and be sure to register to save your seat! (You'll want to, last year this event sold out.)

Monday 14th October 2024 | Evening Dinner
to be held at the Westin Grand Frankfurt

Individual spaces are available for purchase with your conference registration or separately if you're unable to attend the conference. Arrival drinks will be served from 19:00 and we will be seated for dinner by 20:00.

For details of corporate sponsorship tables (full tables of 8) contact events@stm-assoc.org or see here for sponsorship opportunities.

Tuesday 15th October 2024 | STM Conference

Many STM members remember the shift from print publishing to digital. We embraced the changes by offering new features, creating shared infrastructure such as CrossRef, and allowing readers to access content as soon as possible, wherever possible.  We launched new journals before Google launched its first search engine.  We introduced new business models to accommodate the needs of funders, governments, corporations and the academy.  We confronted new challenges as the cost and efficiency of making copies – lawfully and unlawfully -- declined and as our users embraced preprints, mobile, social media, and demanded ever faster, ever more robust, tools. 

With the growth of artificial intelligence and generative AI, our industry faces a new moment of inflection, opportunity, threat and innovation.  Our content may not always be perfect, but it is the best available in terms of validation, quality markers, use of PIDs, consistency of formats, and other attributes. In contrast to materials found randomly on the web, this quality makes our books, journals and databases – especially as versions of record -- highly sought after and indeed crucial for high-stakes application of AI.

AI introduces noise into the system.  It offers new paths to revenue and new ways to improve workflows and research outcomes, while challenging key assumptions underpinning subscription, rights based, and open access business models. Here, at the STM Frankfurt Conference, we will explore what is at stake as AI becomes a norm.  We will investigate the importance of quality to AI. We will discuss what it means to be “AI ready” from the perspective of our users and our members. And we will debate the policy implications of broader and narrower copyright protection in a market where everyone agrees the content is valuable, but not everyone wants to pay to support its ongoing viability.

Please join us.

Advancing trusted research in the AI era

Developing Programme

08:30  

Registration, coffee & networking

09:15

Opening & Welcome –  STM Board Chair 

Introduction of keynote

09:25

Our Future with AI – Getting it Right
Opening Keynote:  Linda S Bishai, Research Staff Member, Institute for Defense Analyses

While tech developers appear to be pushing to grow and field AI models at breakneck speed, there are many with concerns about the pace and the lack of uniform standards applicable to ensuring the AI systems are developed and used responsibly. Do we have the regulations, the regulators, and the understanding to engage with algorithmic interlocutors in ways that do not cause unintended harm? We seem to be headed towards a “Bladerunner” future in which new technology rapidly alters society and human behavior in ways that are horrifying, violent, and unethical. The way to avoid dystopian outcomes with AI and other technologies is to build ethical, legal, and societal implications analysis into all of the processes of its development. Called ELSI, this approach is currently being implemented at DARPA to ensure that blue sky research and innovation is also good research. Initial results show that ELSI-sensitive research produces better, more useful, more reliable technology. AI development, it turns out, can be both good and best.

10.10

Refreshment break & networking

10:40

Relevant [AI] policy around the globe panel
Moderated by: Roy Kaufman, Managing Director of Business Development and Government Relations, Copyright Clearance Center

To some degree, STM publishers have been in the vanguard of the copyright battles relating to AI longer than our fellow media.  For example, for years, we have engaged with governments over the scope of proposed exceptions for text and data mining (TDM).  AI, which is frequently trained through TDM, has raised the consequences of these exceptions to all rightsholders and governments, while bringing new legal and ethical issues to the fore. With governments and courts struggling with reconciling copyright and other legal concepts with AI innovation, we have gathered international experts from the US, UK, EU and Asia to discuss how we ended up here and where we are going.

Elizabeth Crossick, Head of Government Affairs, EU, Global Policy Lead, AI, RELX

Peter Schoppert, Director, NUS Press

Jessica Sänger, Chair of the IPA’s Copyright Committee and Director of European and International Affairs at the Börsenverein (German PA)

Catriona Stevenson, General Counsel, Publishers Association

11.40

Looking at quality, quantity, and openness through the lens of AI
Moderated by: Chris Graf, Research Integrity Director at Springer Nature Group

When a publisher’s content is openly available on the web it is almost certainly being crawled and used to train commercial AI. How concerned should we be about this?

Does it require a rethink on publishers, (and authors) use of CC-BY licences? What, if any, implications are there for integrity and the version of record? And, equally important, what is the preferable balance between quantity and quality from the perspective of AI engines? This session will consider these and other questions as we explore this rapidly evolving area.

Linda S Bishai, Research Staff Member, Institute for Defense Analyses

Adam Day, CEO & Founder, Clear Skies

Pascal Hetzscholdt, Senior Director, Content Protection, Wiley

Chloe Chadwick, Doctoral researcher, Oxford Internet Institute

12.40

Lunch and networking

13:45

Keynote

Giuseppe Attanasio, Postdoctoral Researcher, SARDINE Lab, Instituto de Telecomunicações and Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal

14:15

Community insights on AI readiness

Moderated by: Heather Staines, Senior Consultant, Delta Think and Director of Community Engagement for the OA Data Analytics Tool

AI technology is advancing more rapidly than we can even track, transforming the landscape around us. While as an industry, we often focus more on challenges, AI creates many opportunities as well.

Our expert panelists will highlight both sides, emphasizing the importance of community driven initiatives to ensure responsible and ethical development and application of AI technologies in the pursuit of advancing trusted research.

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, Professor & Coordinator Research & Teaching Professional Development, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Marc Ratkovic, Chair of Social Data Science, University of Mannheim,

Gracian Chimwaza, Chair, R4L Executive Council & Executive Director, Information Training & Outreach Centre for Africa (ITOCA)

15:15

Listening and responding: academic publishers' talk AI readiness

Moderated by: Roger C. Schonfeld, Vice President, Organizational Strategy, Ithaka

Building on the insights from the scientific community, representatives from academic publishers large and small gather to dive into the big AI issues and opportunities raised. We’ll find out what solutions are being developed to harness the power of AI, how ethical and licensing concerns are being tackled, and the importance of human oversight. It promises to be an insightful follow-up as publishers think ahead and address the AI needs of the research world.

Steven Heffner, Managing Director, Publications, IEEE

Miriam Maus, Chief Publishing Officer, IOP Publishing (IOPP)

Priya Madina, VP, External Affairs and Policy, Taylor & Francis

Marie Soulière, Head of Editorial Ethics and Quality Assurance, Frontiers

15:50

Refreshment break & networking

16:35

Executive Panel
Moderated by: Caroline Sutton, CEO, STM

Sarah Tegen, Senior Vice President, Journals Publishing Group, American Chemical Society / STM Board Chair

17:45

Reception drinks, sponsored by Silverchair

Conference Programme Committee:
Chair: Roy Kaufman, Managing Director of Business Development and Government Relations, Copyright Clearance Center

Joris van Rossum, Program Director, STM Solutions
Rachel Scheer, External Communications, Director Academia & Government, Clarivate
Susie Winter, VP External Comms, Springer Nature
Rachael Harper, Head of Marketing Communication, IOPP

 

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