Listening to @heidialexander.bsky.social on BBC Radio 4 earlier this morning, it's clear that Keir Starmer and his cabinet are complacent, tone-deaf, convinced they know best and take the electorate for fools. Same arrogance displayed by the Tories just two years ago.

As a panellist, with a different (literal) perspective, I can now say with confidence that this is the segment of the scholarly research communications community that collects laptop stickers #CopimConference

Beyond Accessibility session need to happen more at other industry conferences. Though I missed Tobe Amadi's presentation, the focus on usabililty aspect by @anicazeyen.bsky.social's presentation is on point. Open Access tends to miss these issues. #CopimConference #Accessibility

Bias declared: 😉 Pleased to hear the activities going on in my native #Nigeria to advance Open Access within, and using local contexts. Well done, Fatimah Jibril Abduldayan frm Nigerian Maritime Uni. With @wacren.bsky.social involved, sure its replicating across West Africa. #CopimConference

This. Here. Is the crux of the matter! Scholars while being the main recipient - or victims - of most decisions in the scholarly communication space, are at the same time, the least involved in co-creating these frameworks that impact them. Credit: @openreflections.bsky.social #CopimConference

"Scaling small allows for the collective coordination of resources across a diverse ecology of orgs that creates a meta 'community of communities'..." - Dr Janneke Adema, Cultural and Media Theorist; keynote: #CopimConference It's that "community of communities"!

The panel on Infrastructure including a Global South representation is promising. So is the wide range of sector inclusion: funder, libraries, indexer, and grassroots players, chaired by Emma Green of @investinopen.bsky.social. #R2RConf #R2R2026

Thanks, @rouhiroo.bsky.social. It was a combined effort with a participant group that were open to sharing ideas and concerns alike.

Join us following the Researcher to Reader Conference on Wed Feb 25 in London! Tickets still available for the conference r2rconf.com/r2r-conferen... You are welcome at Scholarly Social whether or not attending the conference. Grab a space now: www.tickettailor.com/events/schol... All welcome!

"S2O is not a chemical symbol", confirms the Chief Science Officer at the American Physiological Society, Dr Dennis Brown. #AcademicPublishing But he had to hear the explanation 20x before realising the above. #R2RConf #R2R2026

Second day of #R2RConf opens with a focus on #Preprints, and its various handling forms, including aggregators of evaluations of preprints like @scietyhq.bsky.social. Kudos to @katherine-brown.bsky.social mentioning @prereview.bsky.social whose capacity building model is outstanding.

Mark Carden announces a transition process for #R2RConf in preparation for retirement. SKS Knowledge Services, run by Tiberius Ignat will carry it forward. This is what great and sustainable leadership is: recognising when to step off with a clear succession plan. Congrats, Mark!

"We're at risk of trading slow longterm intentional work with quick time convenience." - Amanda Licastro, Head of Digital Scholarship, Swarthmore College #R2RConf #R2R2026

Thank you for asking your question. I was getting up the confidence to ask a very similar question. Really important to avoid excluding public contributors and other voices from authorship.

Keynote speaker, Dr Leslie McIntosh raises a critical issue about authorship: "who qualifies to be an author?" This irks me because a definition based on formal scholarship will result in discrimination against communities for their labour and contributions. #R2RConf2026

#Researcher2Reader conference opens with Mark Carden's usual candour bringing in everyone into the space like an old friend. #R2RConf2026

Amsterdam wil fat-bikes verbieden. Is dat gekke? #Cycling #Fietsers #Fatbikes #Amsterdam #Netherlands nos.nl/l/2602161

There we go again! Sadly, though glad that I had the foresight to predict this would end in tears for LGBTQ people. The Church of England is not willing, let alone ready. #Faith #Fake #Belief #Religion #Exclusion #ChurchOfEngland www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Angela Rayner is potentially the next leader of the Labour Party as Stammer slowly digs himself deeper in service of his #NewLabour guide. It's only a matter of time.

Europe, Canada and the UK had stood idly by all along enjoying the spoils of global socioeconomic inequity until their gang leader (USA), through its erratic president bit them hard in the form of insisting on having Greenland. Suddenly, Canada confessed their complicity. #Inequity #GlobalLeadership

"He (Donald Trump) is the manifestation of the ugliness that is in us". 👌🏾👌🏾👌🏾 www.threads.com/@philallenjr...

Just nine months ago. I blogged this: "Whether he will become a unifying voice or a steadying hand... the possibility of a different kind of #Leadership: one rooted in clarity, steadiness, and engagement" Then #Davos 2026 happened! #GlobalTapestry globaltapestry.substack.com/p/in-a-world...

Prime Minister Keir Starmer is running scare because even he believes his days in No 10 is numbered. He's now buying time in a democratic form yet authoritarian in instinct. That's leadership by gatekeeping. But for how long? #Leadership www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Thanks for the call-out @godwyns.bsky.social. VeriMe Cooperative provides a researcher-first privacy-preserving means to verify identity -- and provides pathways to accountability for all research ecosystem stakeholders. Look for more during Data Privacy Week #DPW26

The US is increasingly difficult to differentiate from Iran in so many ways: capital punishment, breaking up communities, clamping down on protests, and now slaughtering innocent citizens. Yet, the world is not horrified the same way. www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/...

Sadly, January 2026 may be remembered as the monumental month/year, when the United States began its journey into a pariah. The speed of this shift may make it difficult for future administrations to fully undo its effects. www.idsociety.org/news--public...

Bored of Peace. OR Board of Piss. Your choice if there's still real freedom. It's a mirage.

We are proud to be launching our webinar series on the dangers of #censorship in research and education by hosting a discussion with @penamerica.bsky.social about their new report "America's Censored Campuses" Register soon and share! tinyurl.com/437aybub #DefendResearch #ScholComm #SciSky

For the first time in a year, EU, UK and Canadian Heads of Govt and Parliaments finally stood up to Trump, and he backed down in a jiffy. Now, they mustn't drop their guard, he's not done. #Geopolitics ##GlobalLeadership www.cnn.com/2026/01/21/b...

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was ….” As the chicken has come home to roost in the so-called West via #Greenland, the confessions are beginning to pour out: "we knew the story of the international rules based order was... FALSE"! www.instagram.com/reel/DTvnzOj...

Trump's administration's cuts for science research is devastating, not just for science, but for society at large. It will yield an unprecedented negative impact on vulnerable groups, with its effect lasting decades. #Science #Funding #GlobalLeadership www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

While we were concerning ourselves with poor #Leadership on the world geopolitical stage, what is left seems to be moving into full gangsterism: They've poured the petrol. What is left now is for them to light the match, which is already in their pockets. It's gonna sadly fun!

This current Greenland matter is the last frontier before a full blown destruction through self-implosion befalls the fabled Western Hemisphere. Interestingly, this now seems so clear that even PM Starmer is for once, finally straightforward about it. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cx...

"And at every stage, we must ask: Whose voice is missing? Who is not in the room? " #Justice #Community #Equity open.substack.com/pub/globalta... Photo credit: Photothek/Sebastian Rau (Germany)

Berlin Brandenburg Airport feels like a modern crap! Sort of like something that was absolutely modern and futuristic in 1925. But oh, it does have free wifi! 🤷🏽‍♀️

British politics never fails to stage spectacular and omnishambolistic dramas. In one day, Jenrick has been a Tory, an Independent, and a Reform MP. It's not the end at this speed. Farage will be the next to sack him. All chasing personal glory and self-preservation. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cr...

Here's an invitation to sign on to the Stockholm Declaration, as shared by Dan Larhammar and Bernard Sabel #APE2026 #ScholarlyCommunication See here: sciii-it.org/stockholm-declaration

Researcher ID verification system to help eliminate common integrity issues! 1. Preventing the bad actors 2. Expanding use of any services, and sharing knowledge - Steven Inchcoombe (President Research, Springer Nature, UK) @verime.coop? #APE2026 #ScholarlyCommunication #Community

Response from Sweden dating back over 25 years ago, when the public was asked... ... the greatest scientific discoveries/inventions in the previous millennium? Shared by Dan Larhammar (Uppsala University – Sweden – Member & former President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences) #APE2026

"AI should be a tool, not an Oracle." - Lukas Pollmann, Lead Customer Engineer for publishers at Google Cloud Germany #APE2026 #ScholarlyCommunication #AI

"We have to have the human attention in the loop on the [AI] judgement." - Sahar Vahdati, Professor of AI Science, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany. #APE2026 #ScholarlyCommunication #AIUse

'Uncharted Intelligence: AI, Policy, and the Global Reinvention of Scholarly Publishing'. @judeperera.bsky.social and this panel tackles some thorny but candid questions regarding a landscape intertwined with suspicion about artificial intelligence. #APE2026 #ScholarlyCommunication

"It's the problem of AI itself. AI activates the problem we have in science communication. " - @abalkina.bsky.social commenting around AI contribution in article consumption. Further states it's "structural problems". #APE2026 #Community #ScholarlyCommunication

“#OpenAccess APC waivers do not redistribute power” @godwyns.bsky.social keynote on building justice in social communication at #APE2026

"There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olsen, Founder, Digital Equipment Corp. 1977 #APE2026 #Value #OpenAccess

This powerful image used by @carolinesutton.bsky.social in her talk visually links Checks and Balances to Justice, insisting that monopoly, which inversely is lack of collaboration and involvement - not just inclusion - will not address the change we need. #APE2026 #ScholarlyCommunication

It's my first time at APE Conference and I'm loving the style that if you want to ask a question, you go and queue behind a stationary standing mic. #Community #ScholarlyCommunication #Participation #Accessibility

Check out this new insight: "Safeguarding Scholarly Communication" by STM just shared/launched by @carolinesutton.bsky.social at the end of her inspiring talk which points towards collaboration more than anything. #Communalism #ScholarlyCommunication s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/stm.offloadm...

Ingo Rother opens #APE2026 welcoming everyone to Berlin. @carolinesutton.bsky.social takes the floor for her keynote with an apt focus on: 'Building epistemic trust in scientific knowledge - together (An independent publishing industry: The case for Checks and Balances).' #Community #ScholComm

Het is fijn om weer thuis te zijn in Amsterdam. Nu ga ik op weg naar Berlijn voor de APE-conferentie. #APE2026 #Community #OpenAccess #Justice