Aries Systems Corporation

The month of May just doesn’t feel complete without a trip to the annual Society for Scholarly Publishing (SS) conference! Held last week from May 28-30 in Baltimore, Maryland, SSP 2025 was dedicated to “Reimagining the Future of Scholarly Publishing at the Intersection of Value and Values” and the increasing pressure to provide value in a community of diverse needs during a time of accelerating change. As scholarly publishing continues to balance innovation, optimization, and maximizing value – we must also collectively maintain financial health of our organizations and protect the scholarly record. The 47^th annual SSP meeting created an open forum for honest conversation on how to both prioritize and harmonize our core values as a scholarly ecosystem with the need for creating value through advancement, collaboration, and scalability.

In town early to host our second Executive Exchange Summit of 2025 – an exclusive, intimate event focused on connecting with strategic clients and partners – on May 27, the Aries team was eager to get a head start on the week of networking and learning! Throughout the conference, we met with many colleagues within the industry – including our partners at Clear Skies, Cactus Communications, Proofig, DataSeer, Atlas, and so much more! Aries Systems was an official Fellowship Sponsor for SSP 2025. As our second annual sponsorship of the Generations Fund, SSP awards fellowships to early career professionals, those from underserved communities, and students of publishing, librarianship, and information science. The Generations Fund program provides educational seminars, annual membership to fellows, travel, and mentorship. Aries’ Senior Director of Client Services, Ryan Walther, accepted the certificate of gratitude from SSP on stage alongside fellow Generation Fund sponsors during the Awards Luncheon on May 28.

The Aries team was also featured as a panelist in Session 3D – Real World Results on Peer Review: Pilot Study Indicates a Solution – on Thursday, May 29. The session explored the value of a structured peer review process (SPR) in optimizing the publishing workflow and spotlight a real-life pilot study designed to test these strategies in practice. Jeff Christie, Aries’ Senior Client Services Account Coordinator, joined the panel alongside representatives from the Iowa Carver School of Medicine, Elsevier, and Wolters Kluwer Health. Additionally, Aries Senior Account Manager Elysia Williams co-moderated the popular Previews session on May 29. Congratulations to our newest partners at DataSeer on their win from the audience-voted solutions showcase! Elysia Williams also served as a volunteer for the SSP Annual Meeting Program Committee to support theming, agenda, and activities related to the conference!

“Attending SSP 2025 was a privilege. We were able to reconnect with customers we haven’t met in-person for quite a while and engage in diverse networking to become introduced to new folks as well!” stated Jeff Christie on his experience at the conference. “I was fortunate enough to participate in a fantastic panel discussion surrounding a peer-review-centric case study that could help lead to a more standardized and streamlined form of peer-review. My fellow panelists and I were able to share insights and opinions with our audience followed by an active Q&A session. Meetings like SSP are a vital opportunity for Aries staff to continue to learn about trends, concerns, and the overall direction in which scholarly publishing is moving. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to attend and present and am already looking forward to the next meeting!”