Tag: society journals

Pensoft at the Nordic Oikos-GfÖ 2026 conference: Integrating the Diversity of Ecology

Between 13-17 September 2026, Pensoft Publishers joined the Nordic Oikos-GfÖ 2026 conference in Odense, Denmark.

Between 13-17 September 2026, Pensoft Publishers joined the Nordic Oikos-GfÖ 2026 conference, jointly organised by the Nordic Society Oikos and the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland (GfÖ) in Odense, Denmark.

Themed “Integrating the Diversity of Ecology”, the event welcomed over 1,000 researchers in the field from across career stages, who had the opportunity to enjoy conference talks across 36 thematic sessions, as many as six keynote talks, two poster sessions, several open society meetings and quite a few social events, including excursions and a conference dinner. 

Conference delegates enjoying the musical clock installation mounted on an elevated balcony on the glass façade of the ODEON building, where the Nordic Oikos-GfÖ 2026 conference took place between 13 and 17 September 2026.

Throughout the scientific event, conference delegates had the opportunity to also explore the various publishing services offered by Pensoft to authors of research, journal managers, conference organisers; the diverse portfolio of almost 100 open-access peer-reviewed journals published on Pensoft’s ARPHA Publishing Platform.

Beyond publishing solutions, a key focus was given to OBSGESSION: a Horizon Europe-funded project where Pensoft is actively involved. To better understand and predict changes in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems, the OBSGESSION consortium integrates multi-source Earth Observation data (such as high-resolution satellite imagery and drone monitoring) with ground-based in-situ research, including advanced environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling. By coupling these data streams with cutting-edge detection-attribution modelling and machine learning algorithms, the project generates scalable Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs). These ecological approaches and analytical frameworks are actively tested and validated through six biodiversity pilots across diverse European ecosystems. In the open-science Research Ideas and Outcomes journal, you can find a collection of project outputs, including research papers, project reports and deliverables, and guideline papers published across journals and platforms.

At the Pensoft-OBSGESSION-branded booth, conference participants would stop by to chat with Pensoft’s Head of Journal development and PR: Iva Boyadzhieva and Senior Communications Officer: Desislava Raykova.

As a leader of the “Dissemination, Multi-stakeholder outreach and synergies” work package at OBSGESSION, Pensoft is tasked with stakeholder engagement and community building, ultimately contributing to the high impact of the resulting outputs, methodologies and policy recommendations that aim to strengthen public understanding of biodiversity change.

Earth Observation meets in-situ biodiversity monitoring: Pensoft joins the OBSGESSION project

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One of the six keynote talks was presented by Prof. Dr. Isabell Hensen (Martin Luther University Halle, Germany), who received the GfÖ Honorary Medal 2026 for her leading, forward-looking contributions to ecological research and the scientific community. Her work examines how genetic variation, environmental conditions, disturbance, and plant-animal interactions shape plant populations, with particular emphasis on rare species, biological invasions, and the regeneration of degraded forests.

In her talk, titled “One spark is enough: regeneration ecology of Andean forests under global change”, she reported on post-fire regeneration processes in tropical Andean forests, based on long-term field experiments and observational studies. 

Hensen focused on the well-studied endemic plant genus Polylepis, which forms the world’s highest-elevation forests and illustrates how fire has shaped ecosystem dynamics over millennia. Her talk also mentioned a 2022 monograph of the genus, published in the Pensoft journal PhytoKeys by Tatiana Erika Boza Espinoza (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú) and Michael Kessler (University of Zurich), which brought together results from 35 years of field and herbarium experience.

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On Wednesday, Pensoft’s Iva Boyadzhieva delivered a presentation titled “Scholarly Communication: Lessons from the Publisher’s Kitchen”. She highlighted the vital role publishers play in helping researchers communicate their insights not only to peers, but also to decision-makers and the public. Emphasizing the publisher’s responsibility to support authors with robust infrastructure and dedicated human expertise, she outlined how Pensoft works to FAIRify scholarly publishing and future-proof scientific knowledge in an era of rapid AI development and expanding research output.

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Pensoft’s team was delighted to meet up with dedicated readers, authors, reviewers, and editors from across Pensoft’s portfolio, as well as introduce Pensoft journals to attendees discovering them for the first time.

Unsurprisingly, well-established society journals published by Pensoft, such as Frontiers of Biogeography, NeoBiota, Vegetation Classification and Survey, Vegetation Ecology and Diversity and Italian Botanist drew plenty of attention, alongside long-standing Pensoft’s own titles like Nature Conservation, PhytoKeys, One Ecosystem and the Biodiversity Data Journal. 

Visitors were also particularly intrigued by several newly launched Pensoft journals. Developed in close collaboration with passionate researchers, these fresh outlets directly address key gaps in academic publishing. 

One of the newly launched journals in the spotlight was Agricultural and Environmental Modelling (AEM), which provides a unique scholarly outlet thanks to its modern approach to publishing by increasing transparency, giving credit to research objects across the entire modelling research lifecycle. This is achieved through publishing specialised article types, such as: Formal Model, Model Testing and Calibration, Model Implementation and Documentation, Data Papers and Software Descriptions. These new publishing formats are designed to keep pace with advances in Modelling research and to make it FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) by enabling scholarly credit for diverse research outputs, often created by different groups of authors. For the time being, AEM remains a Diamond Open Access journal, meaning that it will not charge authors for open-access publication. 

Other recently founded journals addressing emerging and fast-developing disciplines within the ecological field that took the spotlight were:

  • Individual-Based Ecology: launched to support understanding and predicting ecological systems’ response to rapidly changing and novel conditions by linking individual responses to responses at higher levels of organisation.
  • Advances in Pollinator Research: a multidisciplinary journal publishing research on pollination ecology, pollinator-plant interactions, pollinator health and drivers of pollinator declines, crop and wild flower pollination, pollinator conservation practices, molecular ecology of pollinators, pollinator and pollination monitoring, decision support for policy and socio-economics.
  • Journal of Regeneration: a multidisciplinary journal for the dissemination of research results on regeneration and tissue repair across phyla. These mechanisms can be framed within an evolutionary framework and integrate a variety of cellular processes involving stem cells, dedifferentiating or even transdifferentiating cells. 

All of these journals operate with no article fees for either authors, nor readers.

To receive updates on new publications and relevant news, sign up for Email Alerts on any journal’s homepage. Creating a Pensoft account also allows users to  easily customise their notification preferences, follow additional journals, or filter updates by research topic. You can also follow journals on social media, including BlueSky, Facebook and Linkedin.

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Supporting European Policy Through Priority Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs)

Delegates at the event showed strong interest in OBSGESSION’s first policy brief: “Prioritising Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) to support European Union (EU) policy needs based on the EU’s Biodiversity Strategy for 2030.” To tackle a critical challenge in environmental monitoring, OBSGESSION focuses on prioritising key EBVs to directly support the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 – a roadmap designed to put Europe’s biodiversity on a path to recovery through 102 specific actions and sub-actions.

To align these policy needs with actionable data, the OBSGESSION team conducted an assessment to identify priority EBV candidates. By categorising EBV-applicable actions and indicators across different ecosystem realms and implementation stages, the project pinpointed the most essential variables needed to strengthen monitoring, reporting, and policy execution. The document is based on a deliverable by the project (D1.1 Policy Landscape and Needs Assessment).

This policy brief is part of a broader, ongoing effort within OBSGESSION to bridge the gap between biodiversity data and policy execution. To dive deeper into the science behind this topic, the project has hosted a dedicated seminar series exploring key aspects of the framework:

Bringing Methodologies to Life Across European Ecosystems

Beyond theoretical frameworks, OBSGESSION grounds its research in six biodiversity validation pilots across Europe. The case studies represent European biodiversity and ecosystem conservation challenges at scales varying from local to regional. Full details on each ecosystem pilot are now available in a collection of newly published pilot factsheets, which made their debut at the conference, where people could take a look at their digital versions. 

Reading those materials gives an insight into the practical testing environment to demonstrate how Earth observation, field research, and ecological modelling come together to deliver actionable biodiversity insights. You can also check out OBSGESSION’s biodiversity pilots on the project’s website.

The OBSGESSION in a Nutshell video presents a concise overview of the project’s overarching mission and components.

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To relive the conference by exploring the detailed programme alongside the full abstracts, visit the conference website.

Keep up with future updates and news from Pensoft by following us on Bluesky, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn. 

Pensoft’s statement on the European Union’s Conclusions on OA scholarly publishing

We are firm supporters of healthy competition that drives innovation and revolutionary technologies, while supporting freedom of choice.

On behalf of Pensoft Publishers, we express our support for the Conclusions on high-quality, transparent, open and equitable scholarly publishing, recently published by the Council of the European Union. We do share all concerns articulated in the document that highlight major inequities and outstanding issues in the scholarly publishing environment.

In our opinion, it is of utmost importance to promptly address the existing issues in the publishing system, where healthy competition can thrive and contribute to a reality safe from potential mono-/oligopolies and corporate capture.

We firmly believe that only an industry that leaves room for variously-scaled pioneers and startups is capable of leading a long-awaited shift to a high-quality, transparent, open and equitable scholarly publishing landscape aligning with the principles of FAIRness.

Yet, we shall acknowledge that the industry has so far failed to eradicate the most fundamental flaw of the past. In the beginning, the main aim of the Open Access (OA) movement was removing the barrier to access to publicly funded scientific knowledge and scrapping costly subscription fees.

Recently, however, the industry’s biggest players merely replaced it with a barrier to publication by introducing costly Article Processing Charges (APCs) and “big deals” signed between top commercial publishers and academic institutions or national library consortia. 

As a result, small and middle-sized open-access publishers, which have, ironically, been the ones to lead the change and transition to OA by default and oppose the large commercial publishers’ agenda, were effectively pushed out of the scene. Further, we are currently witnessing a situation where OA funds are mostly going to the ones who used to oppose OA.

So, we strongly support measures that ensure an inclusive and FAIR competition, which could in turn prompt quality, sustainability and reasonable pricing in scholarly publishing. In our opinion, an environment like this would actually foster equality and equity amongst all publishers, either small, large, non-profit, commercial, institutional or society-based. 

One of the main points of the conclusions is a recommendation for a general use of the Diamond OA model, where no charges apply to either researchers or readers. While we fully support the Diamond OA model, we wish to stress on the fact that considerable concerns about the sustainability of existing Diamond OA models remain.

On the one hand, there are OA agreements (also known as read-and-publish, publish-and-read, transformative agreements etc.), typically signed between top publishers and top research institutions/consortia. This OA model is often mistakenly referred to as “Diamond OA”, since authors affiliated with those institutions are not concerned with providing the APC payment – either by paying themselves or applying for funding. Instead, the APCs are paid centrally. Most often, however, journals published by those publishers are still directly charging authors who are not members of the signed institutions with, in our opinion, excessive APCs. Even if those APCs are covered by a signed institution, these are still considerable funds that are being navigated away from actual research work. 

On the other hand, there are independent researchers, in addition to smaller or underfunded institutions, typically – yet far from exclusively – located in the developing world, who are effectively being discriminated against. 

In conclusion, this type of contracts are shutting away smaller actors from across academia just like they used to be under the subscription-based model. Hereby, we wish to express our full agreement with the Council of the European Union’s conclusion, that “it is essential to avoid situations where researchers are limited in their choice of publication channels due to financial capacities rather than quality criteria”.

There are also several alternative OA models designed to lessen the burden of publication costs for both individual researchers, libraries and journal owners. However, each comes with its own drawbacks. Here – we believe – is where the freedom of choice is perhaps most needed, in order to keep researchers’ and publishers’  best interests at heart. 

One of those alternatives is open-source publishing platforms, which – by design – are well-positioned to deliver actual Diamond OA for journals, while maintaining independence from commercial publishers. However, the operational model of this type of publishing and hosting platforms would most often only provide a basic infrastructure for editors to publish and preserve content. As a result, the model might require extra staff and know-how, while remaining prone to human errors. Additionally, a basic technological infrastructure could impede the FAIRness of the published output, which demands advanced and automated workflows to appropriately format, tag semantically and export scientific outputs promptly after publication.

Similarly, large funders and national consortia have put their own admirable efforts to step up and provide another option for authors of research and their institutions. Here, available funds are allocated to in-house Diamond OA publishing platforms that have originally been designed according to the policies and requirements of the respective funding programme or state. However, this type of support – while covering a large group of authors (e.g. based in a certain country, funded under a particular programme, and/or working in a specific research field) – still leaves many behind, including multinational or transdisciplinary teams. Additionally, due to the focus on ‘mass supply’, most of these OA publishing platforms have so far been unable to match their target user base with the appropriate scale of services and support.

What we have devised and developed at Pensoft with the aim to contribute to the pool of available choices is an OA publishing model, whose aim is to balance cost affordability, functionality, reliability, transparency and long-term sustainability. 

To do so, we work with journal owners, institutions and societies to create their own business and operational model for their journals that matches two key demands of the community: (1) free to read and free to publish OA model, and, (2) services and infrastructure suited for Diamond OA at a much lower cost, compared to those offered by major commercial publishers.

In our opinion, independent small publishers differentiate from both large commercial publishers and publicly funded providers by relying to a greater extent on innovative technology and close employee collaboration.

As a result, they are capable of delivering significantly more customisable solutions – including complete packages of automated and human-provided services – and, ultimately, achieving considerably lower-cost publishing solutions. Likewise, they might be better suited to provide much more flexible business models, so that libraries and journal owners can easily support (subsets of or all) authors to the best of their capabilities.

While we realise that there is no faultless way to high-quality, transparent, open and equitable scholarly publishing, we are firm supporters of an environment, where healthy competition prompts the continuous invention and evolution of tools and workflows. 

Our own motivation to invest in scholarly publishing technology and its continuous refinement and advancement, coupled with a number of in-house and manually provided services, which is reflected in our APC policies, aligns with the Council’s statement that “scientific practices for ensuring reproducibility, transparency, sharing, rigour and collaboration are important means of achieving a publishing system responsive to the challenges of democratic, modern and digitalised societies.”

Our thinking is that – much like in any other industry – what drives innovation and revolutionary technologies is competition. To remain healthy and even self-policing, however, this competition needs to embrace transparency, equity and inclusivity.

Last, but not least, researchers need to have the freedom to choose from plenty of options when deciding where and how to publish their work!