STM Association Names New Executive Director

Information Community News

November 16, 2021

Dr. Caroline Sutton
Dr. Sutton, who currently serves as Director of Open Research for Taylor & Francis, will take up the position in February 2022.

STM (The International Association for Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers) announced today that its Board has appointed Dr. Caroline Sutton as the organization’s new Chief Executive Officer. Caroline who currently serves as Director of Open Research for Taylor & Francis will take up the position in February 2022.

STM helps shape the research communication system of the future as the leading global trade association for all involved in advancing trusted research. Caroline joins the organization to promote the contribution that publishers make to innovation, openness and the sharing of knowledge, as well as to spearhead continued innovation across scholarly communication.

“The STM Board is delighted to have appointed an outstanding individual to lead our organization and to advance the goals of our industry.” Said Nick Fowler, STM’s current Chair. “Caroline’s deep experience of the Open Science landscape and extensive background within scholarly communications, make her uniquely qualified for the role. We look forward to working with her as STM seeks to support the growth and sustainability of the research ecosystem.”

Caroline’s appointment highlights the ongoing transformation of STM, which in 2019 adopted a new broader and more inclusive vision and mission. She will lead the reinvigorated organization’s continued mission of developing standards and technology to ensure that research outputs are of high quality, trustworthy and easy to access.

Before joining Taylor & Francis, Caroline co-founded Co-Action Publishing, was one of the founders and first President of OASPA and served on the board between 2008-2021. She is also serving on the Board of Directors of Dryad, the Advisory Board of CESSDA, and Director with Infrastructure Services for Open Access (IS4OA), the managing organization of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). She was appointed to the OpenAIRE Advisory Board in 2013 and has held several other past board positions including at SPARC Europe (2010-2013) and the Lund University Library Board (2008-2010).

Speaking of her appointment Caroline said: “Scholarly publishers have a critical role to play in the future of scholarly communications. As someone who has been deeply committed to advancing our industry in partnership with stakeholders and the communities we serve, I am thrilled to take on this new role and am eager to work with the Board, the STM membership and the wider community to drive positive transformation within scholarly communications.

About This Organization

About STM

STM is the leading trade association for academic and professional publishers worldwide. At STM we support our members in their mission to advance global research. We have over 140 members based in over 20 countries around the world who collectively publish 66% of all journal articles and tens of thousands of monographs and reference works. As academic and professional publishers, learned societies, university presses, start-ups and established players we work together to serve society by developing standards and technology to ensure research is of high quality, trustworthy and easy to access.