Photo by Thomas Ashlock on Unsplash
Photo by Thomas Ashlock on Unsplash

Surf’s up, friends!

New developments in all areas of scholarly publishing — happening in response to and informed by rapid technological advances (lest we remind you about the ongoing AI boom) — have given rise to a wave of change we’ll be riding into 2025 and beyond.

What stands out from the previous year that we can expect to influence this new one? And (everyone’s favorite question!) what comes next?

In this blog post, Scholastica team members share scholarly communication trends we’re watching in 2025. Here’s a preview:

Practical implications for AI

Given the nature of our industry, I think most vendors and institutions are taking a judicious, if slow, approach to AI / LLMs – and I think that’s wise. The first places you’ll see (or have already seen) AI integrations are internal tools. While it requires care and creativity, organizations can use AI to streamline processes, reduce waste, and generally increase efficiency. And, because these are internal use cases, there tend to be fewer ethical considerations and far less risk of upsetting customers. For all these reasons, internal tooling is a great place to explore the efficacy of AI / LLMs, and I expect this trend to continue.

But where is our industry headed in the longer term?

First, the technology needs to get better. For example, AI support for parsing/processing documents is still underwhelming (though improving rapidly). Similarly, most AI tools still lack the ability to provide robust and reliable references (though this is also improving). But, I expect these and other problems will eventually be solved.

Second, folks need time to become more comfortable with AI assistance. I think we could all imagine ways that AI could help a journal run more efficiently (e.g., drafting correspondence, recommending reviewers, assisting with article selection, etc). But, most of these ideas involve tradeoffs and ethical considerations. Given enough time, I think most publishers and platforms will leverage AI assistance. The challenge will be building and using AI tools in a way that eliminates tedium without compromising the quality and impartiality of article publication.

Cory Schires
This section was written by Cory Schires, Scholastica Co-Founder and CTO

Advances in research integrity discussion

At the academic publishing industry conferences I attended in 2024, I felt the discussion around research integrity was more focused on threats than solutions. This focus stands to reason, given the rapid rise of AI and the corresponding sense that many publishers had that there was a rapidly growing threat to their publishing program’s integrity. So, many conference attendees were in the middle of trying to evaluate the scale of this new threat. I think, in 2025, many publishers are ready to move on from this initial fearful phase to a new focus on solutions.

My prediction (and hope) is that in 2025 we’ll see a more nuanced discussion of research integrity at conferences and beyond, specifically:

  • Increased discussion of the risk/benefits tradeoffs of nascent research integrity tools (e.g., case studies exploring the advantages of tools vs the time it would take to integrate the tools, manage false positives, etc.)
  • More sessions featuring cost/benefit frameworks to help guide publishers in determining how much to invest in research integrity and where to invest to provide the most value
  • Panels focused on strategies and tactics publishers are taking to combat specific research integrity challenges, including discipline-specific tools and threats
  • Case studies where maturing research integrity programs share information about their staffing priorities, tooling, the impact of their programs over time, etc.

Overall, I’m optimistic we’ll see a move towards discussing the specific flavors of research integrity challenges that crop up in different ways depending on discipline, publisher, workflow, staffing size, etc.

Brian Cody
This section was written by Brian Cody, Scholastica Co-Founder and CEO

Honing publishing workflows

I work directly with journal teams daily to support their peer review, production, and publication work. In that work, talking with editors, authors, and reviewers, I expect to see more of the following trends in the coming year:

  • As academic resources continue to be stretched thin, journal editors have been increasingly conscious of demands on their editorial staff and reviewers. As a result, they’re continuing efforts to streamline workflows. Reducing redundancies and employing more rigorous article screening upfront have become crucial time savers. Editors are also using tools like smart submission forms that collect information such as validated PIDs, author copyright consent, etc., at the time of submission to save them from having to chase down authors for incorrect or missing information later.
  • The full spectrum of journals — from brand-new to well-established — are all showing increased interest in professionalization. They’re working to meet standards like CRediT and also working towards inclusion and integration with indexing services like the DOAJ and PMC to improve discoverability on an ever-volatile web landscape.
  • Academia hasn’t escaped discussions around the appropriate use of artificial intelligence. Editors and publishers are preemptively setting up guidelines for what they’ll accept as far as author use of AI in the research and writing of academic articles (looking to guidance from standard-setting bodies such as COPE). Setting AI guidelines ahead of time helps journal teams ensure that there are no unpleasant surprises on either the publisher’s or author’s side in terms of what the journal deems to be acceptable.
Anna LeSuer
This section was written by Anna LeSuer, Scholastica's Head of Customer Success

Value as the North Star for marcomms

I think a good litmus test for planning any new marketing or communications initiative in 2025 is to ask yourself the qualifying question: If I were [insert target audience] and I saw this, would I be excited, or would I scroll past it? If the answer is scroll, go back to start.

At this time of information overload, people are becoming hyper-focused on only allocating their attention to organizations and publications they believe offer clear and consistent value (and a little entertainment never hurts!). Our goal as marketers should be to help our communities get the information they need fast and in formats that are as convenient as possible (no fluff but nothing too byzantine, please).

What are specific tactics to achieve this deceptively simple goal? Here’s what stands out to me:

  • Strategic information packaging: The hub and spoke model, or organizing related content into topic clusters, offers multi-pronged opportunities for organizations to 1) help their audience find related resources faster, 2) improve their website user experience, and 3) improve their SEO. A notable recent example is ASCE’s “Advancing the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals through Publishing” resources page.
  • Old-fashioned SEO (it’s not dead just yet!): Speaking of SEO, while there’s a lot of legitimate talk about AI transforming the world of search, I think it’s important to remember that SEO best practices still matter. They are the foundation of a successful search strategy. So, it’s worth evaluating your website health! Areas to focus on include site architecture, crawlability, indexation, and information flow. If people can’t find you, they won’t know about you! And if your website is hard to navigate or slow, they won’t stick around.
  • Keep email sacred: As people become more discriminating about where they direct their attention, taking a quality-over-quantity approach to email will be essential. The two keys to this are maintaining list health (i.e., removing unengaged contacts) and smart segmentation.
  • Explore the new social media frontier: A social media shakeup is underway (i.e., Twexit), and it’s still shaking out! I shared my take on emerging platforms to try in this recent blog post.
  • Experiment with video: Video is becoming one of the most effective ways for organizations to engage with their communities. Now is the time to start experimenting (especially with short-form content)!
Danielle Padula
This section was written by Danielle Padula, Scholastica's Head of Marketing

Putting it together

Only time will tell what this year has in store, but one thing is sure — we will see innovation in all areas of scholarly publishing. That’s what we’re focused on here at Scholastica as we continue working toward our mission to empower scholarly organizations to make quality research available more efficiently and affordably so they can further their missions. We’re excited to see how the digital publishing landscape will continue to develop in 2025.

What other scholarly publishing trends are you watching this year? Share your thoughts in the comments section!

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