Researcher to Reader conference under new ownership
The future of a premier scholarly communication conference has been assured after its director announced succession plans under new ownership.
Researcher to Reader (R2R), which is currently in its 11th year, announced an agreement for the company that operates the event to become part of SKS Knowledge Services.
Mark Carden, founder and director of Researcher to Reader, announced during the 2026 conference held in London: “I have been talking openly about the need to ensure the future continuity of our valuable meeting, as I near retirement, and I have now found a partner to take R2R to the next level.
“Tiberius Ignat, General Director at SKS, has been a regular participant at R2R – and his company (which runs scholarly events, conducts EU-funded research, provides research consultancy services and distributes research information for major publishers) is an excellent fit for R2R.”
The intent is to transfer ownership of R2R to SKS within the next few months, and R2R will then continue as before, but with a new impetus and future trajectory. Mark Carden will continue to act as an advisor to the event, to ensure a smooth transition.
Tiberius Ignat said: “I have been a long-term supporter of the Conference, which offers a space where publishers, librarians, technologists and researchers can discuss their mutual challenges with vigour and honesty. SKS also believes in practice before rhetoric, analysis before advocacy, realism before ideology, and also in polite opinions and honest feedback before fashionable slogans and technocratic mantras.
“We intend to keep all the key features that make R2R so valuable and relevant to our community. But we will also start to explore how the outcomes of R2R can become more perennial, how conversations here might travel asynchronously across geographies and time zones. R2R could be a springboard for learning about scholarly communication, research integrity, academic freedom, responsible research and innovation, and research impact. All in service of one aim: improving the quality of research.”