Last week, Oleksandr Berezko, Associate Professor at the Department of Social Communication and Information Activities, the Institute of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 果冻APP, and coordinator of the international project Open4UA, took part in intensive training in Oxford as part of the programme the University Press Publishing for Ukraine: Policy and Practice.
A representative of our University was a member of the Ukrainian delegation, which included academic leaders, employees of university publishing centers, editors of scientific publications, library specialists, representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and the expert community. The focus was on publishing policies, transparent editorial processes, responsibility and visibility of research results, as well as long-term preservation and impact of scientific knowledge. The program was based at Oxford Brookes University.
The program of the visit focused on key actors in the global academic publishing landscape. Participants joined sessions with representatives of Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Princeton University Press, UCL Press, Taylor & Francis, Springer Nature and BMJ Publishing Group, as well as UKRI, one of the leading national research funders in the UK. A separate infrastructure block was supplemented by world-class organizations, in particular Crossref, CLOCKSS, Jisc and Ingram Content Group. These institutions today largely shape the rules of the game in the field of academic journals and monographs, digital distribution and long-term preservation of scientific results.
The program combined theoretical discussions with institutional visits. In particular, participants visited Oxford University Press, where they became acquainted with publishing workflows, the work of editorial teams, and the global structure of the publishing industry. A visit to Ingram Content Group offered insights into modern solutions for automated book production and print-on-demand, showing how technology is reshaping book publishing and the logistics of knowledge dissemination. At UCL Press, participants explored the implementation of open access publishing and its links to the university鈥檚 research policy, as well as broader approaches to reforming research assessment.
Key topics of the program included open science, sustainable financial models for university presses and the role of state support, as well as academic integrity and publishing ethics. Particular attention was given to the evolving ecosystem of scholarly communication, the growing importance of institutional and national open access policies, and the increasing role of metadata infrastructure, persistent identifiers, and long-term archiving.
Following the training, Oleksandr Berezko emphasized that openness in science is primarily a tool of influence: 芦When the world looks closely at Ukraine, open science becomes soft power. We build trust through transparency, reproducibility and willingness to share results so that they become the basis for cooperation. The trust we earn is then returned through partnerships, the ability to influence the international narrative (not only about Ukraine and the war, but also about 芦life, the Universe, and in general禄), and investments in people and institutions禄.
An important result of the trip was the formation of a professional community of participants, which went beyond the role of program participants and initiated a substantive dialogue on the vision and strategy for the development of the Ukrainian knowledge ecosystem under conditions of limited resources and significant challenges. Another key aspect of the visit was the interaction with the Ukrainian community in Oxford, which demonstrates how education, science, and culture function as instruments of diplomacy within the intellectual environment of the United Kingdom.
