About BISP
The Berlin Institute for Scholarly Publishing (BISP) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to bringing publishers, researchers, funders and policymakers together. BISP provides the logistics for the Academic Publishing in Europe (APE) Conference, an annual exchange of information between publishers, researcher institutions, libraries, universities and decision-makers at local, national and EU level.
The team
We are supporting early-career researchers and publishers.

Arnoud de Kemp
Chair of the APE
Conference Program Committee
Arnoud is the Chair of the APE Conference Program Committee and an advisor for just about everything else at BISP! He founded the Academic Publishing in Europe Conference in 2006 after a long and distinguished career in publishing, which focussed on bringing publishers into the internet era, adopting new technology for research communication and embracing open access.

Eric Merkel-Sobotta
Managing Director of BISP
Eric is the (part-time) Managing Director of BISP in addition to his full-time function as head of communications for a scholarly publisher. He has worked for several other publishers over the years and also has experience working for trade associations and communications agencies in Washington, Brussels, Amsterdam and Berlin. His role at BISP is to oversee logistics and finances, promote the APE Conference, ensure the development and execution of seminars, and to make sure that there is good coffee in the pantry.

Marta Dossi
Director Operations, BISP
Marta is the Director, Operations of BISP. Right after earning her B.A. in communications in Verona, she moved to Munich to pursue her love for the German culture and language, and to study sociology and literature. She started her career in publishing as a freelancer for Deutscher Kunstverlag in Berlin. In her past role as editorial assistant for the Literary & Cultural Studies team at De Gruyter, she had the chance to sharpen her organisational skills by taking care of various conferences for authors and editors.

Organizer APE conference
Annual meeting place for all stakeholders in scholarly communication and scientific publishing.
Purpose
The Berlin Institute for Scholarly Publishing (BISP) is a not-for-profit organization under German law dedicated to bringing publishers, researchers, funders, and policymakers together. BISP was founded in 2020 by the Walter de Gruyter Foundation, an independent, not-for-profit family foundation dedicated to the promotion of science and research, especially in the humanities and social sciences.
BISP is the organizer of the Academic Publishing in Europe (APE) Conference, which has been held in Berlin since 2006. BISP has taken on the organization of APE from its founder, Arnoud de Kemp, who remains the Chair of the APE Conference’s Program Committee and who is responsible for curating the annual exchange of information between publishers, researcher institutions, libraries, universities and decision-makers at local, national and EU level. The conference, which takes place in January, is the first major publishing conference of the year and is known for its lively debates and friendly, collegial atmosphere.
Additional income from the APE Conference will be invested in developing and running seminars and training courses for early-career researchers, early-career publishers, and early-career professionals at research funders. The objective for bringing these groups together is to ensure that key stakeholders in the research ecosystem develop a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities that they face together and separately. The courses, which will include topics such as peer review, publication ethics, discovery promotion, networking, career development, sharing, data policy and technology, will be taught by experts in the field who have significant, practical experience.
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