Recent Processes of Change from the Perspective of Academic Publishers

Like science itself, the academic publishing companies are characterised by a high degree of heterogeneity. They vary strongly with regard to their size, their products, their willingness and capability to innovate – there is obviously a relationship of correspondence between the publishers and their characteristics, on the one hand, and the different areas of science and their forms of announcing research results, on the other. The ‘Future of the Scholarly Communication System’ interdisciplinary working group (IWG) invited representatives of three academic publishing companies as well as one editorial staffer to present this diversity and to ask which effects digitisation, economisation, an increased use of performance indicators, as well as medialisation have for the publication landscape. The objective of the discussions and interviews was to obtain a multi-layered picture of the publication landscape, which would reveal significant similarities and differences regarding the business models and positions towards the demands in science policy (for example, open access). The evaluation of the conversations is organised as follows. In a first step, the four publishing companies – represented by the interviewees and their current position on the market – are introduced. Then, the effects the publishers have on the structure of the market is questioned. Here, the focus is on how the publishers position themselves with respect to central developments and which role they play with respect to the digitisation of the publication infrastructure. The spectrum of roles ranges from the protagonist, who actively participates in