My role at CEU Press was linked to my background. I was born in Durham, NC, USA, but I’m Polish by background and I spent my early childhood in Warsaw before moving to England. During my time at CEU Press, my aim was to foster the scholarship pertaining to the history, culture and unique characteristics of Central and Eastern Europe. A region which is not a homogenous entity, but rather a complex community of distinct cultures and traditions. Many of the authors we published were from the region and offered a distinct and truly valuable perspective.

Now at Paradigm, there are similarities in my work. In terms of our aims, we work with independent publishers around the world, irrespective of their size or specialization, to ensure that their content is digital and visible and that their finances are not only stable and sustainable, but also prepped for growth to ensure independence and success. By preserving the operations of these independent publishers, we support local publishers and help sustain diversityof thought in publishing.

Moreover, as CEO of the Polish office of De Gruyter Brill, I am lucky to be responsible for promoting the fantastic team based out of Poland!

Paradigm Publishing Services is the union of Sciendo, Ubiquity and the University Press Library (UPL). Sciendo and its predecessor organization have been part of De Gruyter Brill since 2012. UPL was created in the Boston office of De Gruyter in 2014and Ubiquity was acquired in 2022 and we have our main offices in Boston, London and Warsaw.

The union came about after the creation of De Gruyter Brill in 2023. We wanted to create a flexible, professional and effective offering for university presses, smaller academic publishers and societies. Grouping together the units that focused more on publishing services gave usthe momentum toexpand our services and we now offer sales and marketing representation for university press collections, subscription services, and we can build customized websites and repositories for our partners.

Well, I’ve touched on some of the points, but basically, we want to be the leading partner for independent, for- and not-for-profit academic publishers worldwide. We will do this by providing agile and responsive services that meet market demands to ensure the digital visibility, financial sustainability, independence, and success of our partners within scholarly communications.

We are achieving this through strategic collaboration, cutting-edge technology, and a deep understanding of the scholarly ecosystem. We make our customers’ research more discoverable and more accessible. We provide open, closed, and hybrid solutions to societies, associations, publishers, and libraries in all disciplines and all areas of the world. Our expertise strengthens our partners’ operations, extends global distribution, drives research integrity, and ensures financial sustainability. 

Under our “One Paradigm” program, which launched this year, the new Paradigm brand will be rolled out across the Sciendo, Ubiquity and UPL products and services this year and we will complete this process in 2026. This means that our customers will not only see more of the Paradigm branding, but will also start benefitting from a more integrated and complementary service and product offering all over the world.

Three things set us apart very clearly from other providers:

1. Our genuine understanding of publishing since we all come from a publishing background
2. The completeness of our offering and the ability of our customers to either have the entire menu or select only the services they need.
3. Our dedication to our customers’ financial sustainability through strong partnerships that empower them to maintain their autonomy and distinctive character in an increasingly consolidated industry.

Obviously, partnerships like the one we have with ACSE are key for us to expand to other publishers in Asia and beyond. We have launched a series of webinars to share publishing know-how with editors, whether they partner with us or not, globally since increased professionalism in publishing is a win-win situation for everyone.

It is true that the immense positive potential of AI is accompanied by some concerns. We intend to use AI where it provides real benefit, for example,to improve editorial workflows, while also being vigilant about possible abuses or overreach. We will be launching a new journal matcher tool along with our new platform later this year, and this tool will use AI intensively.

What we are aiming for any and all two-way engagements. With the new webinar series we launched, we not only want to help encourage best practice, we also want to learn from regional publishingcommunities to better understand local opportunities, challenges and needs. More content from other parts of the world means better representation for researchers, scholars and practitioners there, and also increased diversity of thought and a wider geographic choice on our platform.

I have to say that one of the things I enjoy most that the people I work with are not only experts and consummate professionals, but they are also genuinely open-minded, interesting, and even fun. So, I am lucky in that I am surrounded by people at work that I not only respect, but also like. That makes for a great working environment and also means that our team is comfortable with change and is able to participate creatively to addressthe challenges the wider publishing community faces.

About the Paradigm Merger
Paradigm Publishing Services combines the strengths of three trusted platforms:

Sciendo
Part of Paradigm Publishing Services, Sciendo supports over 400 journals across 40+ countries. With more than two decades of experience, Sciendo helps editors achieve indexing, impact, and international visibility.

Ubiquity Press
A pioneer in open access (OA) publishing, Ubiquity supports all OA models—including diamond and green. Ubiquity also provides repositories and publishing infrastructure for institutions, aligning with open-source and community-driven values.

University Press Library (UPLOpen)
Launched in April 2024, UPLOpen now hosts more than 10,000 open access academic books from 50+ top scholarly publishers. It offers researchers high-quality, peer-reviewed content, entirely free to read.

Together, these entities form Paradigm Publishing Services, a dynamic service arm of De Gruyter Brill that aims to make high-quality academic publishing more accessible, collaborative, and sustainable.