On January 19th, a group of eighteen Ukrainian delegates arrived at Oxford Brookes for a week of professional development, their journeys sponsored by ten of the UK’s leading academic publishers. The week-long programme “University Press Publishing for Ukraine: Policy and Practice” attracted changemakers from universities as far apart as Kyiv and Dnipro, and even from Zaporizhzhia - now literally on the front line of Russia’s offensive, the farthest Putin’s military has reached since the 2022 invasion.
After introductions from Prof. Angus Phillips and the SUPRR team (Frances Pinter, Ghanna Kharlamova and myself) the week began with sessions from keynote speakers including Jonathan Glasspool (Chair of the Industry Advisory Board, Oxford Brookes), Caroline Sutton (CEO STM) and Kimberley Williams (European Director, Princeton University Press). The delegates were pretty tired; travelling from Ukraine involves practically every form of land and air transportation, and takes around twenty-five hours. After the sessions ended most returned to their host families for a peaceful night – though a small group decided to forget the travails of the journey by visiting an Oxford pub!
There were great sessions to follow from Sabina Alam (Director of Publishing Ethics and Integrity at T&F), Henry Spilberg (Senior Editor, BMJ) and independent consultant George Walkley, who delivered a video presentation on the hot topic of AI in academic publishing. In the afternoon we left the confines of Brookes and headed out to OUP, where Christine Richardson (Head of Comms) had organised an afternoon visit. After a walking tour of Oxford, when at last the sun shone, the day ended with a reception and formal dinner in Hall at St John’s College, hosted by Prof Lady Sue Black.
Next we headed out to London to be treated to an excellent extended presentation at UCL Press hosted by CEO Lara Speicher, followed by sessions on the COPIM open book collective / opening the future initiative given by Kira Hopkins. The afternoon ended with a talk on UK research delivered by Rachel Bruce, Head of Open Research at UK Research and Innovation. Ukraine is ahead of the game as regards open access publishing, as virtually all the country’s academic journals are published free to download under a CC-BY licence. An instructive day ended with a reception given by Princeton University Press Europe, hosted by Kimberley Williams.
On the penultimate day, we left the Brookes Campus again for a tour of Ingram printing and distribution services, and had a surprise musical welcome with Ukrainian singers (one delegate grabbed a mike and joined in) and the traditional welcome of bread (“horovai”). A round of applause to Ingram’s Andrew Bromley and Jaqueline Sells for a great welcome and a fabulous tour of Ingram’s state-of-the-art production facilities.
Then it was back on the bus to Brookes for sessions from Anna Vernon of JISC , David Prosser of Research Libraries UK, Ed Pentz of Crossref - which is widely used in Ukrainian scholarly journal publishing - and Gali Halevi of CLOCKSS.
In effect, the whole week, originally conceived as an editorial training course, was a Ukraine and UK academic publishing conference, with over 30 speakers from leading UK publishing houses. The last day featured a session on sales and marketing from TBICommunications and Liverpool University Press, followed by an extended session and lunch offered by Springer Nature. And to end the week, OICPJ’s Director Angus Phillips presented the attendants with a celebratory course certificate.
All our Ukrainian delegates have now returned home – but where daily living conditions are cruel: apart from the ever-present danger of incoming ordnance (apparently the noise of the relatively slow-moving drones resemble moped engines) the temperature in January dropped to minus 19 Celsius. With water and electricity only available for a few hours a day many schools and public buildings were closed due to the cold. Yet the resilience of Ukrainians is incredible; all brought their hosts and our speakers small gifts, including chocolate (they still manufacture chocolate in wartime?) and motanka dolls, ancient symbols of prosperity, goodness and hope.
The feedback has been so positive; as one delegate commented, “my sincere thanks to the organisers for the invaluable knowledge, experience, and practical guidance on growth and development. It was a real privilege to be part of such wonderful company with generous hosts, a warm and truly home-like atmosphere, and shared visions and perspectives on the future. Our task now is to carry these ideas forward and develop them further in Ukraine”
Heartfelt thanks are due to Oxford Brookes publishing staff for all their support (especially with video set-up - cheers Miriam!). There is lots of work to do now, but the inspirational week was a great springboard for future developments in Ukrainian academic publishing.
If you would like to know more, please contact me at byron.russell@suprr.org
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