Dear colleague,

Registration for R2R 2027 is open.

“Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?”

This line from Harold Pinter has stayed with me while we have been building the programme for the next Researcher to Reader Conference. At first, it sounds like a wonderful British wit. It also captures the mood of research remarkably well.

The known is expanding quickly. Access to knowledge is increasingly open to everyone. Artificial intelligence has changed how we search, summarise, translate, generate, recommend, review and use knowledge.

The unknown may be expanding even faster. The world has changed from order to disorder. Geopolitics is reshaping scientific collaboration, research security, funding and access to knowledge. Political review is pushing peer review to the margins. Increasingly, black-boxed technologies are changing how evidence is produced and consumed.

And then there is a third category: the questions still waiting to be asked.

R2R 2027 begins now by asking you “Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?”

On 23–24 February 2027, around 200 researchers, research managers, librarians, publishers, technologists and others who make the research system work will gather at BMA House in London.

For two days, we will examine how research can become better, how worthwhile ideas can travel faster, and how scholarly communication and research management can help accelerate progress.

Some of the questions running through this year’s programme are:

When machines become participants in scholarly communication, where should human judgement sit? How do provenance, attribution and trust work when both people and machines create, discover and evaluate knowledge?

How does responsibility travel through the research record? From editorial decisions and peer review to corrections, integrity signals and the evidence readers eventually encounter.

What infrastructure does research need now? What should be shared, what should remain distributed, who governs it, who funds it, and what the next generation of open research infrastructure has to say?

Who is the reader? A researcher, a practitioner, a policymaker, a curious citizen, an AI agent? Increasingly, the answer may be all of them. Research communication will have to become considerably more imaginative.

And what happens when research assessment moves upstream? Can the way we think about impact, evidence and value improve research design itself, before publication even enters the picture?

These questions connect sessions on human judgement and AI; research integrity and editorial transparency; open research infrastructure; communication and discovery; readers beyond academia; and new approaches to research assessment.

They will also connect the different formats that make R2R distinctive.

Our Collaborative Workshops will tackle concrete problems over three meetings. Participants will explore how corrections can travel reliably through the scholarly record; test portable signals of trust beyond peer review; prototype research communication for people and AI-mediated discovery; investigate who consumes Open Access research beyond academia; and examine how impact ambitions can shape evidence and research design.

A new format, the Plenary Lightning Talk, will bring crisp ten-minute ideas onto the main stage. Ten minutes is long enough to challenge an assumption, present some evidence and start an argument. It also gives PowerPoint rather less time to become comfortable.

Our formal Debate returns, alongside plenary presentations, roundtables and plenty of opportunities to challenge speakers and one another.

There will be coffee, lunch and our evening reception. A surprising amount of us still enjoy communicating in person.

R2R works best when people arrive ready to contribute, question, compare experiences and occasionally change their minds. Past participants have consistently told us how valuable they find that mixture of serious discussion and the R2R unusually open atmosphere. In the Open Science arena, R2R takes on the responsibility of opening minds and hearts.

Join us in London and see for yourself.

We continue to work hard to make R2R accessible to academics and people earlier in their careers. For R2R 2027, we are again offering academic rates, reduced rates for returning registrants and an early-bird discount.

The programme will continue to develop over the coming weeks, with further speakers and sessions to be announced.

The known will keep expanding. So will the unknown. But perhaps the most interesting territory is everything we have yet to think of asking.

I hope you will explore it with us in February.

With best wishes,

Tiberius Ignat
Conference Director
Researcher to Reader

R2R is delighted to announce that MDPI has renewed its Silver Sponsorship of the Researcher to Reader Conference for 2027.

We are very grateful for MDPI’s continued support of R2R and our scholarly communications conversations, and are delighted to welcome them back to the Conference once again.

MDPI is a pioneer in scholarly, open access publishing and has supported academic communities since 1996. Based in Basel, Switzerland, MDPI’s mission is to foster open scientific exchange in all forms, across all disciplines. Its diverse portfolio of peer-reviewed, open access journals is supported by a global network of academic experts who share MDPI’s commitment to providing high-quality service for authors. MDPI’s articles are freely available and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Our sponsors provide invaluable support for the Conference, helping us to keep registration prices lower and making R2R accessible to a broad community of professionals across scholarly communications.

The Researcher to Reader Conference 2027 will take place on 23–24 February 2027 in London.

Registration will be opening soon. We look forward to welcoming MDPI and the wider research and publishing community back to R2R in February.

The R2R Team
7 October 2026

R2R is delighted to announce that Digital Science is returning as a sponsor of the Researcher to Reader Conference for the fourth consecutive year, once again as a Bronze Sponsor.

We are very grateful for Digital Science’s continued support and commitment to the R2R community.

Digital Science is an AI-focused technology company providing innovative solutions to the complex challenges faced by researchers, universities, funders, industry and publishers. Its portfolio – including Altmetric, Dimensions, Figshare, and Overleaf – helps publishers analyse data more effectively, track research outcomes, safeguard research integrity, enhance author services, and identify potential collaborators.

The Researcher to Reader Conference 2027 will take place on 23–24 February 2027 in London.

Registration will be opening soon. We look forward to welcoming Digital Science – and the wider research and publishing community – back to R2R in February.

The R2R Team
7 October 2026

Researcher to Reader is pleased to announce that Sara Rouhi has joined the R2R Advisory Board.

Sara is Director of Portfolio Growth and Open Innovation at AIP Publishing. A political scientist by training, she joined the scholarly publishing community in 2008 and has since worked across a range of publishers and software providers, including ACS Publications, Digital Science, PLOS, and AIP Publishing.

Her work sits at the intersection of community engagement, product development, and equitable business models for sustainable non-profit knowledge dissemination. She is a strong advocate for a global knowledge ecosystem that maximises participation in the benefits of scholarly inquiry.

Sara received the Emerging Leader Award from the Society for Scholarly Publishing in 2015 and served as an at-large Board member for SSP from 2022 to 2024. Her work at PLOS was also part of the initiative recognised with the 2021 ALPSP Award for Innovation in Publishing.

Outside her role at AIP Publishing, Sara is active as a free-speech advocate, co-author of the “Declaration to Defend Research from US Government Censorship,” and a founding member of DefendResearch.org. She is also a long-form improviser in the DC comedy scene and writes on scholarly publishing, politics, free speech, and comedy.

Sara’s perspective will be especially valuable as R2R continues to develop as an independent forum for deeper understanding between different research stakeholders. Her experience will strengthen R2R’s engagement with open innovation, community participation, equitable business models, non-profit knowledge dissemination, and the public responsibilities of scholarly communication.

We warmly welcome Sara Rouhi to the R2R Advisory Board.

Researcher to Reader is pleased to announce that Professor Ilan Kelman has joined the R2R Advisory Board.

Ilan is Professor of Disasters and Health at University College London and Professor II at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. His overall research interest is linking disasters and health, while integrating climate change into both. His work focuses on three main areas: disaster diplomacy and health diplomacy; island sustainability, with attention to safe and healthy living and livelihoods; and risk education for health and disasters.

His perspective will be especially valuable as R2R explores the development of a science diplomacy strand. This strand would connect with R2R’s existing strengths in science communication, research assessment, and data and publication infrastructure, while opening space for discussion of how science, policy, diplomacy, security, and research governance increasingly interact.

R2R intends to examine developments such as “Defence Research in European Universities: A Conceptual Framework” and the launch of the Defence University Alliance. These developments point to wider trends in which peer review, research assessment, institutional strategy, security concerns, and political review are becoming more visibly connected. Arguably, political review has always existed in research, but its visibility and force appear to be changing, and research communities need serious spaces to analyse what this means in practice. R2R will refrain from promoting ideological and rhetorical dispositions, but will try to identify practices, present and analyse them. 

R2R will keep its focus on practice exchange, analysis, and networking. As the conference develops into a more continuous forum, Ilan’s experience in disaster diplomacy and health diplomacy can help the Advisory Board steer a thoughtful science diplomacy strand into the R2R scope, supporting meaningful conversations and helping the community identify and share best practices in response to emerging trends.

We warmly welcome Professor Ilan Kelman to the R2R Advisory Board.

More about Ilan’s work is available here:
https://www.ilankelman.org/
https://www.disasterdiplomacy.org/

Instagram/Threads/X @ILANKELMAN and Bluesky ilankelman.bsky.social

Researcher to Reader is pleased to announce that Dóra Kalydy has joined the R2R Advisory Board.

Dóra is Deputy Director General of the Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. She is responsible for the Electronic Information Service National Programme, which runs at the Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and manages the Hungarian national consortium for e-resources, Read & Publish agreements, and transformative Open Access agreements.

Her expertise will be especially valuable to R2R as we continue to examine the practical realities of research access, library consortia, Open Access transitions, and publishing negotiations. The Hungarian national consortium for e-resources, Read & Publish, and transformative Open Access agreements is one of the most interesting and well-organised consortium environments in Europe, offering important lessons for the wider scholarly communication community.

Dóra’s experience can help R2R better understand the challenges and opportunities of running such consortia, including new trends in e-resource management, transformative agreements, national coordination, and the complex relationships among consortium members, consortium management, publishers, vendors, and other partners.

In addition to her consortium leadership, Dóra is involved in the daily operations of the Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the renewal of traditional library services, and the library’s international relations. She has been a LIBER Executive Board member since 2022 and is also a member of the LIBER Citizen Science Working Group. She actively participates in the Association of Hungarian Librarians, where she has served as Vice President since May 2023 and heads the Academic and Special Libraries’ Section.

Her current work also includes renewing the Hungarian research library landscape and strengthening libraries’ roles in Citizen Science, cultural heritage preservation, and dissemination.

Dóra’s perspective will strengthen R2R’s engagement with the full Researcher to Reader cycle, particularly around research access, library consortia, Open Access agreements, research infrastructure, and the evolving role of libraries in scholarly communication.

We warmly welcome Dóra Kalydy to the R2R Advisory Board.

Researcher to Reader is pleased to announce that Dr Cem Birol has joined the R2R Advisory Board.
Cem is a Research Data Senior Specialist at Koç University Suna Kıraç Library in Turkey, where he leads institutional initiatives in research data management, Open Science, and FAIR data practices. Koç University is one of Turkey’s most research-intensive institutions, with a strong research environment that includes a solid medical research programme.
Cem brings together expertise in research data, research management experience, and a strong academic background. He received his PhD in Political Science from Rice University in 2019, specialising in quantitative methods, statistical modelling, and the study of international conflict. Alongside his work in research management, he continues to publish on applied statistics and political science.

He serves as Co-Chair of the Open Science Thematic Group of the European Association of Research Managers and Administrators, contributing to evidence-informed discussions and initiatives on Open Science across Europe. He currently leads the TÜBİTAK 2237-A project, Research Data Management Training for Multi-Partner Projects, coordinates ECCCH: ACCESS, an ECHOES Cascade Grant project supporting digital capacity building in the cultural heritage sector, and contributes to the Horizon Europe STARDAST project, which advances research data stewardship and FAIR data competencies across Europe.
His current interests include evidence-based research management, institutional incentives for Open Science, research data stewardship, and practical governance mechanisms that strengthen research quality and collaboration. Cem is the curator of the Missile Tests Dataset. This dataset contains daily records of live missile tests from all countries between 1943 and 2015.
Cem’s perspective will be especially valuable as R2R continues to engage with underrepresented geographies that have outstanding research capacities and highly dynamic research communities. His experience will strengthen R2R’s engagement with research data, Open Science, institutional governance, FAIR practices, and the broader infrastructures that support the full Researcher to Reader cycle.

We warmly welcome Dr Cem Birol to the R2R Advisory Board.

Researcher to Reader is pleased to announce that Dr Sacha Jones has joined the R2R Advisory Board.

Sacha is Head of Open Research Services at the University of Cambridge. She and her team work within the University of Cambridge Libraries and Archives, where she provides strategic leadership for services supporting open research, scholarly communication, research data management, and the dissemination and stewardship of research outputs.

Her experience is especially valuable because it combines strategic research support leadership at a research-intensive university with a strong academic research background. Before moving into research support leadership, Sacha was an academic researcher. She holds a PhD in Biological Anthropology from the University of Cambridge and spent several years as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Her research focused on human origins, Palaeolithic archaeology, environmental change, technological and cultural shifts, and past human population dynamics.

Sacha is also an active contributor to open research strategy and policy at the UK and European levels, including through the League of European Research Universities and Research Libraries UK networks.

Her perspective will be especially valuable as R2R continues to explore the full Researcher to Reader cycle, including research practice, open research policy, research responsibility, scholarly communication, research data management, stewardship, infrastructure, and the long-term sharing and reuse of knowledge. Sacha is keen to contribute to a forum like R2R, which intentionally avoids ideological dispositions and fashionable slogans to make space for practice exchange, analysis, and respectful conversations.

We warmly welcome Dr Sacha Jones to the R2R Advisory Board.

More about Cambridge Open Research Services is available here:
https://www.openresearch.cam.ac.uk/

Researcher to Reader is pleased to announce that Silva Mitro has joined the R2R Advisory Board. She is a Research Portfolio Manager at Veneto Institute of Oncology – IRCCS.

Silva brings high-level expertise in international networking, designing and managing complex EU-funded research projects, and developing international programmes of global reach in academic, non-profit, healthcare, and international settings, including clinical trial design and coordination.

She also has consolidated experience in organisational development in the non-profit sector, as well as in postgraduate academic programmes, including curriculum development, programme evaluation, and teaching at the postgraduate level. She is also involved as a trainer in professional development programmes targeting research management staff.

Thanks to her long-term experience working with several international organisations, including the European Commission, the State Department, UN agencies, and international scientific societies, Silva’s areas of expertise also include strategy development and implementation, as well as project evaluation and oversight from a funding-body perspective.

In addition, she has a long track record in international relations and grants office management. Her academic background includes linguistics, law, postgraduate management studies, European integration, and funding programmes.

Silva’s experience will be especially valuable as R2R continues to develop as an independent forum for deeper understanding between different research stakeholders. Her perspective strengthens R2R’s engagement with the full Researcher to Reader cycle, particularly in relation to research management, international collaboration, funding programmes, knowledge transfer, and the organisational conditions that support quality in science.

We warmly welcome Silva Mitro to the R2R Advisory Board.

More about Silva’s work is available here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/silva-mitro-6715363b/

Researcher to Reader is pleased to announce that Dr Nabi Hasan has joined the R2R Advisory Board.

Dr Hasan is Head Librarian at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, with more than 31 years of leadership experience in academic and research libraries. He previously served as University Librarian at Aligarh Muslim University, where he oversaw one of India’s largest library systems.

He is India’s first Norman E. Borlaug Fellow in Library Information Systems, trained at Cornell University, USA, and is internationally recognised for his contribution to library leadership, digital learning, research access, Open Science, and professional development. He is a Fellow of the Special Libraries Association and has received several major international honours, including the Rose L. Vormelker Award, the SLA Engineering Librarian of the Year Award, the Bonnie Hilditch International Librarian Award, the SLA Presidential Citation, and the Royal Society of Chemistry Librarians’ Choice Award.

Dr Hasan has held numerous professional leadership roles across Indian and international library and information organisations. He is currently the Secretary of the IFLA Science & Technology Libraries Section for 2025–2027, the General Secretary of the Information and Communication Society of India, and the Chairman of the ILA Sectional Committee on Engineering & Technology Libraries.

A strong advocate for digital learning and broader access to knowledge, Dr Hasan has led and contributed to major national and international initiatives, including India’s National Resource Centre in Library & Information Sciences, national MOOCs on library technologies and science communication, and international Open Science training. He has also contributed to more than 30 national and international projects supported by organisations including the US Department of State, the World Bank, and the European Union.

Through his work with One Nation One Subscription, INDEST, the National Digital Library of India, eGranth, KrishiPrabha, KrishiKosh, and other major initiatives, Dr Hasan has significantly strengthened access to research resources and supported the development of the Indian research ecosystem.

His experience will be especially valuable as R2R continues to develop as an independent forum for deeper understanding between different research stakeholders and as we seek to strengthen international engagement across the full Researcher to Reader cycle.

We warmly welcome Dr Nabi Hasan to the R2R Advisory Board.

More about Dr Hasan’s work is available here: https://web.iitd.ac.in/~hasan