With last years’ experience at SSP, there was definitely something to look forward to when leaving Utrecht the day before the conference started. But with a 16 hours travel and 9 hour time difference ahead, there was also something to fear. Luckily, looking back at SSP 2026 we can conclude that SSP was, yet again, worth the travel (although I’m already looking forward to just a 6 hour time difference in Providence, RI next year).

The ‘conference’ started earlier than expected; when boarding the plane in London that would bring me to San Diego, it turned out that the seat next to me was the one and only Jude Perera. A nice coincidence. With the anticipated jetlag, the first meeting was booked at 7am on the first conference day and that turned out to be a wise decision. By the time the conference formally started, there was already a productive morning behind me.

Although the conference days were mostly meetings, there were a few sessions I attended. It was great to see the Chronoshub session where they shared the story of the new, coherent, platform for author interaction that communicates with all other systems necessary in the publisher workflow like Global Campus. Another interesting session was the one of Kriyadocs where the outcomes of the Publisherspeak survey were shared. Especially interesting because Jason Hillman of AAAS and David Haber of ASM were there to share their perspective on these outcomes. It was a clear illustration of the struggle in scholarly publishing where everyone wants to change and do innovative new things, whilst trying to maintain what worked so far.

No better way to end conference days than with drinks and dinner, I mean networking. 

It was great to see so many familiar faces again, and to meet new people as well. Being back in the office and adjusted to Central European Time again, it’s time to follow up on all these conversations. Thanks SSP for hosting this great conference, already looking forward to next year!