Join us for a half-day workshop at the prestigious Lancaster University, hosted by ChronosHub. This event will bring together members of the UK Higher Education Institution (HEI) community for a day of insightful presentations, networking opportunities, and meaningful discussions on the challenges faced in open science and scholarly communication workflows.
On February 4, ChronosHub continued its workshop series with and for UK Institutions at the beautiful Lancaster University library.
After a successful similar event at London’s Francis Crick Institute previous October, a small group of UK Universities mostly from the North of England got together with ChronosHub to delve into challenges of managing the constantly evolving open access models and mandates, with a view to collaboratively coming up with solutions to the most pressing issues. This was held against a backdrop of universities in the UK undergoing harsh and unprecedented budgets cuts, lending a pronounced sense of urgency to exploring new approaches and technology solutions with cost-efficiency in mind.
Martin Jagerhorn, ChronosHub’s Head of Business Development, led the interactive sessions throughout the half-day, setting the tone for a convivial atmosphere. Martin started off with a high-level overview of key developments in OA since its first ruminations in the early 90s, to also giving an example of the fast effects of recent policy changes, citing Luxemburg’s reversal on hybrid OA mandates and the anticipated changes to the OSTP memo by the Trump administration.
Louise Zambianchi, Open Access Manager at Lancaster University, gave a succinct overview of the implementation of the ChronosHub platform at Lancaster in a live demo, highlighting tools such as the researcher-facing Journal Guide that allows authors to screen potential publication venues against funder and institutional policies, as well as Read & Publish agreements; and demonstrating the ChronosHub widget, which captures all funding requests centrally through AI scanning, minimising the time researchers spend on data input.
Leah Wong, Open Access Librarian at London South Bank University, gave a presentation of the use cases of ChronosHub at LSBU, such as promoting the visibility of existing Read & Publish agreements to researchers in order to maximise the value of these investments.
After lunch, the collaborative aspect of the day was written large in a round table discussion about challenges that UK institutions face around many aspects of OA management. This led to a mind map of challenges focused on green, hybrid/agreements and gold OA, along with suggested collaborative actions to address these challenges. As the workshop came to an end, the rain had stopped and despite the current financial and political challenges in the sector, it felt like this group of UK universities was filled with optimism and a vision of how to jointly navigate the journey ahead.
We look forward to hearing about your daily challenges and discussing how ChronosHub can help address them. Don’t miss this opportunity to contribute to the conversation and network with peers in the industry.
If you'd like to join, please email Martin Jagerhorn at mj@chronoshub.io
How to get to the workshop:
Maps and directions to Lancaster University: See the map
The workshop will be in the Open Research Lab on the ground floor of the library:
Find your way here!
We're having this exciting workshop as a webinar, where we are joined by Louise Zambianchi from Lancaster University and Leah Wong from London South Bank University as they share firsthand experiences of how ChronosHub supports their open access strategies. Learn how they navigate transformative agreements, automate workflows, and meet the diverse needs of authors, funders, and stakeholders—all while keeping costs under control.
If you're looking to optimize your open access processes, this session is for you.
Coffee and refreshments
Speakers: Jan Rylewicz, Business Development Consultant, ChronosHub
A brief welcome from ChronosHub, and an introduction to the main aim and objective of today’s workshop, which is to facilitate the exchange between everyone seen to their needs, challenges, plans and activities around open access.
Speaker: Martin Jagerhorn, Head of Business Development, ChronosHub
High-level introduction to Open Access management and current trends, with a summary of the findings from the London workshop end of 2024, highlighting the main identified challenges and themes.
Speaker: Louise Zambianchi, Open Access Manager, Lancaster University
Louise will present Lancaster’s journey with ChronosHub, discussing how they have managed Open Access challenges, and their strategies for improving OA workflows.
This includes an open Q&A discussion where attendees can ask Louise about her experiences with ChronosHub and Lancaster’s approach to OA management.
A catered lunch break, providing an opportunity for more networking and informal discussions.
Facilitators: Jan and Martin
Attendees will be invited to reflect on the previous presentations, and share their own views and experiences and identifying key priorities for their institutions during the first half of this session.
Following that, attendees will brainstorm practical solutions to address their key Open Access management challenges through collaboration with other institutions, publishers, funders, service & technology providers and key stakeholders like Jisc.
Speaker: Leah Wong, Open Access Librarian, LSBU
Leah will give a bit of context around LSBU’s open access approach, their needs, and how LSBU sees its new Journal Guide in this context, the rationale for joining the collaboration, and what their expectations are going forward.
This includes an open Q&A discussion where attendees can ask Leah about her experiences with ChronosHub and LSBU’s approach to OA management.
Facilitators: Martin
An open discussion where attendees can raise additional thoughts, share insights gained from the interactive sessions, and reflect on key takeaways from the day.
ChronosHub will also present the details of it’s special offering to all institutions that attended.
This will be followed by closing of the workshop with final thoughts of the day and on the future of Open Access management at UK research institutions.
Refreshments and goodbyes!
Jan is passionate about scholarly publishing’s move towards Open Access and a more equitable, knowledgeable world. He thrives on helping UK-based institutions succeed in their OA journeys.
Martin leads our collaboration with institutions, publishers, research funders, and technology partners across the ecosystem engaged in scientific and academic publishing.
