What was hot in March 2024? A look back at the latest news

Prefer a podcast? Listen to an audio version of this blog post.

Discover the latest marketing and scholcomms news

The beginning of April in the UK brought the Easter break, feeling like a natural time for taking stock and looking towards spring and summer. A lot is happening in our industry, and the next few months are packed with events, courses, and exciting developments.

From left to right: Emma Williams, Sharnie Dunstall, Pamela Heller-Miszta, Lou Peck at London Book Fair 2024.

The last month has been super busy for us with our trip to London Book Fair. We caught up with our wonderful industry community and had fun with our very own caricature artist on our stand. It has also been a busy month on the report front, with new launches by Clarke & Esposito, eLife, Jisc, Sparc Europe, Forrester and Ernst & Young. Without further ado, here's what’s been happening over the past month, alongside some things to look forward to in the month ahead.

Keep up-to-date, and receive alerts as soon as we post new content

Scholarly communications

What’s happening in the ever-changing world of scholarly communications? We’ve done the news trawl, so you don’t have to:

Is AI generated content in published research at crisis level, or do we need to slow down and take a deeper look? David Crotty, Senior Consultant at Clarke & Esposito, weighs the evidence in his latest post for The Scholarly Kitchen.
Clarke & Esposito have published a Call for Participants for their 2024 C&E Journal Metrics Benchmarking study. Publishers from across biomedicine, life sciences, physical sciences and social sciences can take part.
PeerJ, a pioneer in broad-scope open access journals, has joined the Taylor & Francis portfolio. PeerJ's titles, including PeerJ Life and Environment, PeerJ Computer Science, and five additional titles in the chemical sciences, will be part of Taylor & Francis' open research program.
eLife have released their report covering the results of the first year of their new model for publishing. They received over 6200 submissions and published more than 1300 Reviewed Preprints. Read the report to discover more insights.
Coalition S have released their annual report, including a comprehensive summary of accomplishments in 2023, highlighting progress and outlining ongoing initiatives. Read the full report.
Jisc have published their review of transitional agreements in the UK exploring the open access landscape and the particular role of transitional agreements. Read the review to explore evidence, discussion and recommendations for action.
Sparc Europe have published their latest report, Understanding the current state of play in Open Education in Europe. The report draws on a survey conducted between November 2023 and January 2024 and examines the roles, challenges, and benefits associated with open education.

Marketing

From AI to influencer marketing – find out what everyone in marketing is talking about this month:

An image captioned 'Taxonomy of Fishy AI,' with several images of poorly made fish by AI.

Credits: IBM: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/ibm-adobe-generative-ai-marketer-trust-campaign/711827/

IBM turned the Las Vegas Sphere into a fishbowl of wonky fish to show what its Watsonx AI platform could help to prevent. Their campaign, "Trust What You Create," showcases the potential pitfalls of generative AI.
Deloitte Digital unveiled a new AI based digital rebrand featuring fully rendered 3D assets to use across multiple platforms.
Influencer marketing is expected to grow by 25% in India in 2024. Ernst & Young have released their latest report, the State of Influencer Marketing in India, based on their 2023 survey results.
Marketing Week’s career survey revealed that ethnic minority marketers face an 8.5% pay gap.
34% of US consumers have tried out generative AI, compared to 27% in the UK, and 25% in France. This report from Forrester potentially points to regulations in Europe for the slower uptake of new AI technology.