Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP)

The Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) is a nonprofit, member-based professional association -- not a standards body or an accrediting authority -- for people who work across the scholarly-publishing ecosystem. A person or organization qualifies as 'part of SSP' by joining as a member (individual or organizational), which in practice draws from publishers, librarians, technology and service vendors, researchers, and consultants working in scholarly communication. SSP's core activities are networking and professional development rather than standard-setting: an annual meeting held each spring, ongoing educational seminars and webinars, topical Focus Groups, and -- its best-known public-facing output -- The Scholarly Kitchen, an editorially independent blog SSP publishes on scholarly-communication trends, policy, and industry analysis.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 23 Jul 2026

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Worked examples

Is an instance

A university library's open-access publishing team joins SSP as an organizational member to send staff to the Annual Meeting and track industry trends via The Scholarly Kitchen.

Is an instance

A journal-hosting technology vendor sponsors an SSP Focus Group session on peer-review workflow tools, alongside publishers and librarians also working that problem from different institutional angles.

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance

Confusing SSP with a standards or accreditation body (like NISO or COPE): SSP does not issue technical standards, certify publishers, or adjudicate publication-ethics disputes -- it is a membership and professional-development organization. Standards questions belong with NISO; ethics adjudication belongs with COPE.

The Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) is a nonprofit professional association, founded in 1978 and operating as a 501(c)(3) educational organization, that brings together people working across every part of the scholarly-publishing ecosystem: publishers, librarians, technology and service vendors, researchers, and consultants. Unlike COPE (the Committee on Publication Ethics) or NISO, SSP does not set technical standards or adjudicate publication-ethics cases — its role is networking, professional development, and industry discussion across sectors that don’t always talk to each other directly.

What SSP does

Annual Meeting — SSP’s flagship event, typically held in late spring, draws a cross-section of scholarly-communications professionals for programming on industry trends, technology, policy, and practice.
Educational seminars, webinars, and Focus Groups — ongoing, more narrowly scoped programming between annual meetings, organized around specific topics (e.g. peer review workflows, open access business models, accessibility) where members from different sectors compare notes.
The Scholarly Kitchen — SSP’s editorially independent blog, launched in 2008 by founding editor Kent Anderson (who went on to serve as SSP president) and currently helmed by executive editor David Crotty. It publishes essays and analysis from senior publishing-industry contributors and is widely read as a barometer of debate on issues like open access, peer review, and publishing-industry economics. It also runs as a podcast.

Membership

SSP membership is open to individuals and organizations working in or adjacent to scholarly publishing — publishers of all sizes, academic and research libraries, technology and platform vendors, and independent consultants. The organization reports roughly 1,100 members drawn from over 20 countries, governed by an unpaid, volunteer board of directors with day-to-day operations run by a small paid staff.

Why this matters for research administrators

SSP is a useful orientation point for anyone tracking where scholarly-publishing practice is headed operationally — not because it issues binding guidance the way a standards body does, but because its meetings and The Scholarly Kitchen surface how publishers, librarians, and vendors are actually implementing (or arguing over) things research administrators also care about: editorial independence, open-access transitions, peer-review integrity, and the practical mechanics of how publication policy changes ripple through to authors and institutions.

Related terms

Use in your systems

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