Welcome to the latest edition of the Open Pharma monthly update! Each month, our team curates the most important news, milestones and insights from the Open Pharma community and beyond, delivering them straight to your inbox.
In this issue, we’re excited to highlight the Open Pharma hybrid workshop held in January, which produced valuable insights into how we can collaborate to achieve the Open Pharma vision.
Open Pharma updates
Open Pharma hybrid workshop
- Open Pharma held its first hybrid workshop of 2026 in the lead-up to the European Meeting of the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP). During the workshop, the COM-B model of behaviour change was used to identify capability, opportunity and motivation barriers that may hinder achievement of the Open Pharma vision goals on patient involvement, plain language and open access. The full meeting report has now been shared with Members and Supporters. We will build on the barriers and solutions identified during the workshop at the next hybrid meeting scheduled for Monday 20 April 2026.
Open Pharma at ISMPP Europe
- Open Pharma had a strong presence at the European Meeting of ISMPP held in London between 26 and 28 January. We were pleased to host a roundtable on how to develop and introduce open access mandates and to present the following four posters.
- Characterizing the open access and Creative Commons licence landscape for pharma-funded and non-commercial research
- Healthcare professionals’ perspectives and experiences of open access publishing: an Open Pharma survey
- Cross-publisher agreement on the defining principles of plain language summaries of publications (PLSPs)
- Transparency of content reuse permissions and costs in biomedical research journals
- Acceptance notifications have been received for Annual Meeting ISMPP in Washington, DC on 20–22 April 2026. We’re excited to present two roundtables, two original posters and three encore posters.
HIFA and Open Pharma collaboration on HCP perspectives of open access
- Between 13 October and 14 November 2025, Healthcare Information For All (HIFA) hosted an in-depth discussion on open access publishing. The session, which was sponsored by Oxford PharmaGenesis, generated 130 messages from 25 people across 12 countries, including healthcare professionals (HCPs), researchers, journal publishers and librarians. In this article, Neil Pakenham-Walsh (Coordinator of HIFA) reflects on the four big questions tackled and reiterates the importance of “embracing different approaches” to strengthen the global evidence ecosystem.
Insight of the month
Academic publishers defeat lawsuit over ‘peer review’ pay, other restrictions via Reuters | 2-minute read
- A US judge has dismissed a lawsuit alleging that major academic publishers (Elsevier, Sage, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, Wiley and Wolters Kluwer) colluded to restrict competition by preventing simultaneous submissions and refusing to pay for peer review. While the ruling favours publishers, the case draws attention to a deeper structural tension in scholarly publishing at a time when submission volumes are rising and trust is under strain. In a recent survey of 139 Australian academic journal editors, many reported difficulty finding qualified peer reviewers, leading to publication delays and missed opportunities to publish quality research. The case reinforces familiar questions; might novel solutions – open peer review, shared reviewer pools or new incentive structures – support both sustainability and transparency in research publishing?
Recommended reads
Why is change in scholarly communication so hard to imagine? Findings from a stakeholder consultation for the cOAlition S proposal ‘Towards Responsible Publishing’ via Open Science Framework | 20-minute read
BOAI celebrates anniversary and reflects on progress of first year as an organization via Budapest Open Access Initiative | 5-minute read
Beyond the ivory tower: the real-world importance of open access today via Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association on YouTube | 1-hour watch
Guest editorial: web references and the issue of content fixity via Committee on Publication Ethics | 4-minute read
Free research for all? How the Unpaywall browser extension is affecting scholarly communication via The Canadian Journal of Information and Library Services | 7-minute read
Upcoming dates and deadlines
- AI discussion forum | Open and sustainable AI (OASI) and the DOME Registry – 10:30 EST / 14:30 GMT / 15:30 CET on 20 March 2026
- Patient involvement working group | Planning: external educational material 1 – 11:30 EST / 15:30 GMT / 16:30 CET on 12 March 2026
- PLS and discoverability working group | Planning: research project – 11:00 EST / 15:00 GMT / 16:00 CET on 9 March 2026
- OA working group | HIFA thematic discussion findings – 10:00 EST / 14:00 GMT / 15:00 CET on 16 March 2026
- Topic meeting | Patient information forum – 11:00 EST / 15:00 GMT / 16:00 CET on 5 March 2026
- Members’ meeting – 10:00 EST / 14:00 GMT / 15:00 CET on 27 March 2026
We hope you enjoyed and found inspiration in this month’s highlights. As always, we welcome your feedback and contributions – if you have an idea for a future monthly update, let us know! To keep up to date with what we’re doing between updates, make sure to follow us on Bluesky and LinkedIn.
