Leader in mission-driven open publishing wins APE Award for Innovation in Scholarly Communication
Thursday 16 January 2025 – Berlin, Germany and London, UK
Digital Science is pleased to announce that Dr Raym Crow, a leading figure in mission-driven, sustainable open publishing models, has won the 2025 APE Award for Innovation in Scholarly Communication.
The award – a joint initiative between Digital Science and the Berlin Institute for Scholarly Publishing (BISP) – has been announced at the 20th Academic Publishing in Europe (APE) Conference in Berlin, Germany.
The APE award is presented to an individual who has brought innovation in scholarly communication to the community, through infrastructure, technology, business models, output on the topic, theory, or practice.
With more than 30 years’ experience in academic and scholarly publishing, Dr Crow has been described as the “intellectual godfather” of mission-driven, equitable, and sustainable open publishing models.
Based in Virginia, USA, Dr Crow is a senior consultant at SPARC and managing partner of Chain Bridge Group, which provides sustainability planning, open-access business models, and strategic publishing guidance to academic and other nonprofit organizations.
His influential portfolio of open models includes: Subscribe to Open (S2O) with Annual Reviews in 2019, Community Action Publishing (CAP) with PLOS in 2020, and Direct to Open (D2O) with MIT Press in 2021.
Speaking to the Berlin awards ceremony via a recorded message from the United States, Dr Crow said he was honored to receive the award.
“I’ve been very fortunate to partner with a number of progressive society and nonprofit publishers in implementing new open models. And, in truth, it’s those mission-driven publishers who deserve recognition for their willingness to experiment and adapt and accept risk as they seek to better align their business models with their missions. So please allow me to share this honor with them,” he said.
The winner receives prize money of €1,000 plus expenses towards attending an APE conference. This is the third year the award has been presented at the APE conference.
Digital Science CEO Dr Daniel Hook said: “The Academic Publishing in Europe Award celebrates the achievements of individuals, including those who have a history of innovative contributions over a long timescale, rather than only focusing on those who have recently and briefly been innovative. The judges acknowledged Raym Crow’s wealth of experience and his significant impact on the sustainability and growth of open scholarly publishing.
“The judges were impressed by Raym’s expertise in strategic business planning and open publishing models, which have been instrumental to the success of open access journals, monographs, digital humanities projects, and much more. He is a worthy recipient of this award and we thank him for his service to innovation in scholarly publishing.”
Also among the judging panel was Dr Liz Allen, Associate Director, Research Consulting, who said: “Raym is a very deserving winner of the prize! He has been at the forefront of experimentation and innovation in scholarly publishing over several decades and has been especially influential in helping organizations to navigate the challenges in their transition to open access publishing.”
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Media contact
David Ellis, Press, PR & Social Manager, Digital Science: Mobile +61 447 783 023, d.ellis@digital-science.com
