Publons and SourceData win ALPSP innovation awards

Peer review platform Publons and open scientific discovery platform SourceData have been named winners at the Association for Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) Awards for Innovation in Publishing.

Meanwhile SAGE founder Sara Miller McCune has been given the ALPSP Award for Contribution to Scholarly Publishing. 

The awards were presented at the dinner for the ALPSP annual conference, held on Thursday (14th September) in Noordwijk in The Netherlands.

The Publons cross-publisher platform tracks peer review activity and helps reviewers get credit for their work with a verified record of their contributions, as well as providing free online training for reviewers. The award judges welcomed the initiative, saying it "benefits the whole publishing community", as well as recognising "the scale of the
undertaking involved to make their vision a reality."    

Meanwhile SourceData provides scientists with "intelligent, data-oriented navigation of their research literature" with the ALPSP judges recognising "the very high level of curation and complex development behind the platform and its significance to the dissemination of research."

David Sommer of Kudos, who was chair of the judges, commented: "What is particularly pleasing is that both of our winners are the result of successful collaboration and partnership working within the industry to make a positive difference to the academic community for the good of all.”

Meanwhile the ALPSP Council presented SAGE's Sara Miller McCune with the Award for Contribution to Scholarly Publishing. McCune founded SAGE in 1965, when she was just 24, and she remains its executive chairman. Paying tribute to her "enterpreneurial spirit and...unwavering dedication to academia", ALPSP said that "under her leadership SAGE has not only undertaken many progressive initiatives, it has promoted an open approach to partnering and supporting young companies."