The Charleston Conference is a landmark event in the scholarly publishing calendar and provides a vibrant and unique meeting point for librarians and publishers from across the USA and the world. The Frontiers team was delighted to be able to attend the 2022 conference in early November. Alongside Julia Kostova, Director of Publishing Development, our delegates included Tom Ciavarella, Head of Public Affairs and Advocacy for North America, representatives from our institutional partnerships teams, and other colleagues from our US office. We were delighted to be a diamond sponsor of this important event, and to take part in several sessions and panels.  

Frontiers hosted a panel on the much-discussed OSTP guidance on public access for federally funded research, bringing a US policy perspective to scholarly communications. The panel’s high-profile experts included Daniel Sepulveda, Senior Vice President at Platinum Advisors, and former advisor in the Obama, Clinton and Biden Administrations; Robert Kiley, Head of Strategy at Coalition S, and Danielle Cooper, Director for Libraries, Scholarly Communications, and Museums at Ithaca S+R.  

Frontiers’ Julia Kostova, who chaired the discussion, said: ‘This is an important moment for agencies beginning to plan implementation of the ‘Nelson Memo’ on open access publishing. As a gold open access publisher, we fully support the new guidance. By bringing together these influential and expert voices, we were pleased to facilitate a discussion to provide an educational foundation for the decision-making process that many of those in our community are currently undertaking.’ The packed room and lively discussion proved we succeeded.  

For those wanting to find out more about partnering with us, Frontiers hosted a vendor information session entitled ‘The future with Frontiers’. The session demonstrated our commitment to rigor and transparency and was led by Global Sales Manager Thomas Romano who said: ‘Our vendor session was a great opportunity for us to showcase the support we offer to help our partners to respond to the policy and community-led calls for more open access publishing.’  

At the conference’s annual Hyde Park debate Frontiers’ Head of Public Affairs Stephan Kuster took up the argument against the motion ‘Resolved: Transformative Agreements Represent the Best Possible Mechanism for a Full Transition to Open Access.’ He said: ‘Participating in this debate with the engaged and informed audience at Charleston was a highly rewarding experience. It is fantastic to be able to explore these critical issues in this forum and to have the opportunity to discuss the ideas set out in our recent white paper on transformative agreements.’ 

In addition to participating in events members of our team were on hand at our booth on vendor showcase day and enjoyed speaking to many delegates about Frontiers’ mission to make science open, as well as hearing feedback from the community about their views on open access and what they need and expect from publishers. Tom Ciavarella, Head of Public Affairs and Advocacy for North America at Frontiers said: ‘As always Charleston provided a forum for valuable conversations with colleagues, partners and many others in the library community. It was a pleasure to be part of the event and to forge connections that will continue to develop and flourish long after the conference has ended.’