How ALPSP is Supporting Growth in the Scholarly Publishing Industry
with Meera Tailor,
Training and Mentorship Coordinator,
The Association Of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP)
Mentorloop Impact Award Winner 2024
"With Mentorloop, we’ve been able to make more successful matches, track progress effectively, and boost participant engagement, helping us achieve our mission of advancing scholarly communications."
Challenges Before Mentorloop: Scaling a Global Mentoring Program
ALPSP, the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, supports not-for-profit organizations publishing scholarly and professional content. Our mentorship scheme is designed for the global scholarly publishing community, with the goal of fostering knowledge-sharing, networking, and collaboration across the industry.
Before using Mentorloop, our pilot mentorship scheme was entirely manual, relying on spreadsheets for matches. While this process made connections, it wasn’t scalable, limiting participation. In 2022, we had just 66 participants. After adopting Mentorloop, we transformed our scheme’s efficiency and scalability, growing to 199 participants in 2023 and 222 participants in 2024.
With Mentorloop, we’ve been able to make more successful matches, track progress effectively, and boost participant engagement, helping us achieve our mission of advancing scholarly communications.
Building Connections Across the Globe
The ALPSP mentorship scheme connects participants from all corners of the globe, spanning diverse organizations—from small society publishers to large commercial entities.
One of the core features of the program is ensuring that 100% of mentoring matches are cross-organisational, helping individuals make valuable connections they might not have had otherwise - aligning with our goal of promoting international collaboration.
Participant feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. One participant said, “I’m happy to have this opportunity to connect with someone with such a different background and with such a different set of experiences.” Another noted, “I was worried about how much I could help since we were in different roles, but I was relieved to find she was actually looking for someone with a different job title.”
Our MQS score is 4.54, with post-meeting surveys scoring an impressive 4.8. Regular follow-ups with participants who are inactive or stuck at key milestones have helped maintain engagement. Additionally, we held introductory and midterm calls for mentors and mentees, providing informal spaces for participants to share advice, and feedback, and ask questions. Feedback from these calls shows that the scheme has significantly impacted career development, with many participants gaining new roles, promotions, and greater career satisfaction.
Ensuring Equal Access and Opportunity
ALPSP’s mentorship scheme is a core member benefit, with a mentee role available to employees of our 330 member organizations, which collectively represent about 60,000 staff. Mentors, however, can come from both member and non-member organizations, allowing for a truly global and inclusive program.
As a founding member of C4DISC (Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications), we actively encourage applications from diverse and marginalized groups. Additionally, we offer free membership to Ukrainian publishers and significant discounts to low-income countries, ensuring their participation in the scheme. Mentors and mentees can be at any career stage, regardless of experience, as we believe everyone has something valuable to contribute.
A great example of this inclusivity is a mentor with significant project management experience outside of publishing who was paired with a mentee seeking to develop those same skills. Their collaboration has been highly successful, with post-meeting surveys averaging five stars. This demonstrates how diverse experiences across industries can provide mutual benefit.
Building a Culture of Mentoring in Scholarly Publishing
Our mentorship program builds a culture of mentoring across the entire scholarly publishing community. Mentees from past years are now returning as mentors, eager to pay it forward and contribute to the community that helped them. We’ve also created group loops for both mentors and mentees to foster peer-to-peer mentoring and encourage a supportive network.
The mentorship mindset and skills gained through the program are transferable to participants’ own organizations, contributing to a positive culture across the publishing industry. ALPSP’s mentorship scheme is regularly featured in reports to our committees and board of directors, where the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. The program is now cited as one of the primary reasons new members join our association, highlighting its impact.
Looking to the Future: Expanding Mentorship Opportunities
Looking ahead, we plan to continue expanding our mentorship program. This includes increasing the number of participants and implementing both peer-to-peer and group mentoring schemes. Our pilot peer-to-peer matches have already shown great promise, with an average sentiment rating of five stars.
We are also surveying our membership to better understand their needs and how we can further enhance the program. As we grow, Mentorloop will remain central to our strategy, allowing us to scale our mentorship scheme while maintaining the personalized support that has made it so impactful.
With Mentorloop, ALPSP has transformed our mentoring program, making it more inclusive, scalable, and impactful. By connecting individuals across the scholarly publishing community and fostering a culture of collaboration and support, our program is helping professionals advance their careers and contribute to the global growth of scholarly communications.
Meera Tailor
Training and Mentorship Coordinator, ALPSP
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Through our mentorship programme, we're gaining new members and also raising engagement with our current members. And it's actually cited as one of the primary reasons that many members join our association.
– Meera Tailor, Training and Mentorship Coordinator, ALPSP
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