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Copim Conference 2026! Exploring the future of community-led open access books
Fri February 27, 2026 @ 10:00 am - 4:15 pm GMT
This free, two-day hybrid conference will bring together the people and projects shaping the future of equitable, community-driven open access book publishing. Timed to coincide with the conclusion of the Copim Open Book Futures project in April 2026, this gathering will look forward and debate: what’s next for community-led open access books?
‘Community-led’ publishing can be difficult to define, and even more difficult to implement. How to identify our communities (which are usually overlapping), make meaningful and practical connections with them, and develop open book publishing infrastructures that are used, governed, and sustained by our communities has been an ongoing challenge that the two Copim projects have grappled with both theoretically and practically over the last six and a half years. During this time, we have also engaged with established and brand-new networks that are trying to achieve similar things in different countries around the world.
At this conference we will be asking essential questions and forging collaborative strategies about what comes next for open access book publishing. Our panels and workshops will tackle topics ranging from the likely outlook for collective funding mechanisms in a higher education landscape characterised by austerity and political vandalism; the role of librarians in advancing Diamond OA book publishing; how to make open access books accessible to everyone who might want to read them; the fragmentations and gaps in metadata that inhibit the discoverability of OA books and how to overcome these; the preservation of PhD research in systems that are targets for hackers; how experimental book publishing will change in the coming years (and if it will change how we publish); and where the new scholar-led OA presses are coming from. We will also reflect on broader overarching questions throughout the event, including how to sustain community activity amid political, economic, and institutional crises; how to identify shared goals and forge effective collaborations between groups, networks, and institutions that have different priorities and ways of working; and how to guard against the co-option and hollowing-out of community-based models, language, and organising strategies by commercial actors whose main priority is revenue generation.
Through lively panels and discussions, we will tackle the most pressing themes for community-led open access books today, with a focus on collective action. It’s an opportunity for people across the community-led open access ecosystem to chart the next phase of open access publishing, together.
- Thursday 26 February 2026 (10:00 – 17:15 GMT)
- Friday 27 February 2026 (09:00 – 16:15 GMT)
