The annual congress was held in Berlin on January 16th under the title Publishing 2020: Ramping up Relevance and Michiel Kolman took the opportunity to lay down his unity challenge to the sector. He underlined that piracy is still a major threat for the industry, taking Sci-Hub as an example of a site which acted in its own interests, not those of authors, publishers or scholarly progress.

Mr Kolman also emphaised the very real challenge of censorship. He underlined the IPA’s commitment to freedom to publish and its strong stance on cases in China, Turkey and the USA.

You can read Michiel Kolman’s speech here and Publishing Perspective’s commentary here.