We are pleased to be able to announce the dates and initial plans for next year’s Researcher to Reader Conference.

The headlines are:

● R2R 2021 was highly successful, with record attendance & over 98% approval
● Our 2022 dates will be 22-23 February
● We are planning a full hybrid conference experience
● The Gold Sponsor, The Royal Society of Chemistry, has renewed
● The Call for Papers will be launched in June or July
● We are inviting additions to our Advisory Board

The 2021 R2R Conference was intended to be our usual highly interactive and collaborative meeting, but experienced online – we were determined not to follow other events by just offering a few webinars to watch at home. Our feedback shows that we achieved our ambitious aims, with over 98% of our survey respondents rating it as both Valuable and Relevant.

Some participant comments included:

“a rich and rewarding conference experience”
“setting the new standard in virtual conferencing”
“the work put into creating a real live event really paid off”
“impressed at how engaging and interactive it was”
“by far the best-organized online conference”

We had a record number of registrations for the 2021 Conference, making it our biggest ever R2R, despite it being a full-price event, being delivered in an online-only form. We also had an exceptional attendance ratio, with 97% of those who had registered joining the event, similar to our past physical Conferences, but probably a world record for an online event.

The video recordings of the R2R 2021 sessions are available on our YouTube Channel, with links on the website. Where a session had slides, these are also available on the website.

The dates for the 2022  Conference will be Tuesday 22 & Wednesday 23 February. We anticipate that we will be back at BMA House in London, as well as online. Registration will open in October as usual.

R2R 2022 is planned to be a fully hybrid event. We want R2R to be a physical event again, as this delivers outstanding communication and collaboration opportunities. But we can build on our online success in 2021 to continue be inclusive for people who are unable or unwilling to travel next year. We aim to ensure that both physical and online participants can be fully involved in the interactive conference experience. We learned a great deal from the successful 2021 online event, and we are confident we can build on this to make a hybrid 2022 very effective. We will continue to invest in the time and tech needed for this, so our costs, value and prices are likely to be similar to previous years.

Our 2021 Gold Sponsor, the Royal Society of Chemistry, has signed up to return for next year, which is great news this early in the timetable. Our 2021 sponsors trusted us to deliver an engaging online event that provided a valuable return for their investment, and we look forward to our past sponsors returning, as well as to welcoming new sponsors.

The 2022 Call for Papers will be announced in June, with our usual range of formats, including presentations, panels, workshops. We plan to continue our programme of pre-conference meetings, and to expand our lightning talks.

Our Advisory Board did an outstanding job of supporting the 2021 Conference, providing invaluable advice on the content of the programme and on the overall structure of the event. Several Board members also went beyond being merely ‘advisory’ and were able to give time and expertise toward the management and delivery of R2R. We are looking for a couple of additional Board members for 2022, and welcome volunteers or suggestions. Currently, we have insufficient numbers of academics, editors and librarians on our Board, and we could certainly benefit from more people from outside the UK and from demographics typically under-represented in scholarly publishing.

Mark Carden
26 May 2021