From May 3 to May 6, 2025, the annual meeting of the Council of Science Editors (CSE) was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Although not widely renowned, Minneapolis is an intriguing city with a rich history and compelling stories. It is located near the Mississippi River, famously referenced in the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The city is also the birthplace of pop singer Prince and is known for its legacy as the flour milling capital of the world. During the event, the air was fresh and the sky was clear (Fig. 1).

I attended the event for the first time, accompanied by Professor Jaegyun Park (Dankook University), who was participating for the second time. Approximately 200 editors, primarily from the United States, gathered at the meeting. Fig. 2 presents the titles of the Short Courses and General Sessions. Numerous other smaller sessions addressed current issues in scholarly publishing, including diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility; artificial intelligence (AI); ethics; research data; transparency in research; research integrity; public access policies; innovative approaches to peer review; and business opportunities in the scholarly publishing industry, among others [1].

On Sunday afternoon, we participated in a program that included a walking tour of the historic Mill District. We visited the Mill City Museum, which was built within the limestone ruins of the Washburn A Mill, a National Historic Landmark in Minneapolis (Fig. 3). The museum featured a variety of distinctive exhibits, including the Flour Tour, Baking Lab, and Observation Deck. The Mill City Museum offered a rare chance to travel back in time and experience the sights and sounds of the workers and machinery that established Minneapolis as the flour milling capital of the world.

In the evening, a welcome reception and poster session were held in the exhibit hall. We presented a poster titled “Progress of Asian Scholarly Journals Over the Past Decade.” I explained the development of Asian journals to interested participants, some of whom expressed positive impressions regarding their growth.

The first official day of the program began early in the morning. The CSE business meeting was held first, which included a business report, a treasurer’s report, and the introduction of new executive board members. According to the business report, membership increased from 670 to 742 over the past year. Following the business meeting, a special program took place: approximately 10 members performed a musical titled “Publish Like It’s 1999!” One member wrote a play depicting the history of journal publishing. The cast performed without rehearsal, yet the production was engaging and left a lasting impression on the audience (Fig. 4).

Afterwards, the sessions were divided into three tracks. I attended a session titled “Navigating the AI-Driven Future of Scholarly Publishing: Challenges, Opportunities, and Real-World Applications.” The session attracted so many attendees that it began after a 10-minute delay for seat rearrangement. This session provided an overview of the impact of generative AI on scholarly publishing and demonstrated how AI tools can support authors, editors, and reviewers. The discussions explored the transformative potential of AI in publishing and editorial workflows, the balance between automation and human-centered decision-making, and strategies to address and mitigate associated risks. Together, participants tested various AI tool use cases in manuscript preparation, reviewed and critiqued the outputs, and discussed approaches for maximizing the benefits of AI capabilities.

Next, I attended a session titled “TOP 2025: An Improved Policy Framework for Increasing the Verifiability of Research.” The Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines are a policy framework that encompasses research practices designed to enhance the verifiability of empirical research claims. Published in 2015, TOP has received broad endorsement from publishers and funders, and more than 2,000 journals have adopted TOP policies. Since its initial publication and widespread use, various recommendations for revision have been proposed. TOP 2025 represents the newly revised policy framework and incorporates additional research practices, such as Protocols, as well as new sections on Verification Practices and Studies that combine multiple practices. I learned how TOP 2025 contributes to research improvement and how it can be implemented in practice. The chair of the session was Dr. David Mellor from the Center for Open Science (COS), and I was delighted to meet him in person (Fig. 5).

In the final session of the day, I attended “Scholarly Communications in a Rapidly Changing US Policy Landscape” because I was particularly interested in public access policy in the United States. The session was chaired by Tony Alves, vice president of HighWire Press. The panel discussed how recent policy changes resulting from the new US government administration are affecting the scholarly communications industry and shared insights from the communities they serve.

The second day began with a session titled “Ethics Clinic: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Ethics,” sponsored by Elsevier. The CSE Editorial Policy Committee presented Artificial Intelligence and Ethics as the 2025 Ethics Clinic topic. This traditional roundtable Ethics Clinic format featured full audience participation and included two engaging speakers who presented case studies to facilitate a group discussion on the ethical considerations surrounding AI, as well as the diverse ways the industry is addressing these issues and challenges.

Next, I attended a session titled “Journal Responses to New Federal Requirement for Public Access to Scientific Research.” This session focused on responses to the Nelson Memo on public access policy. Dr. Mellor provided an overview of the policy, and two speakers—from Frontiers and MIT Press—shared their organizational responses. Following this, I attended a session on “Diversification and Decentralization of Peer Review.” Tony Alves presented an overview of decentralized peer review, and cases from PREreview and bioRxiv/medRxiv were discussed (Fig. 6).

Finally, I attended a session titled “Assessing AI Policies in Scientific Publishing: Are We Prepared for the Future?” This panel examined the effectiveness of current AI policies for peer reviewers and professionals working in scientific publishing. Panelists discussed the strengths and weaknesses of existing policies, using real-world case studies to illustrate key issues. This session helped me gain a deeper understanding of the AI policy landscape.

Afterwards, the poster winners were announced. Although our poster (Fig. 7) did not win a prize, we were fortunate to receive a free ticket to attend the CSE Autumn Symposium. The event concluded with a wrap-up session titled “The Future of Scientific Editing and Publishing: Science Editor Symposium,” where four panelists summarized the main issues addressed during the conference.

I would like to conclude by recalling some of the people I met at the conference. First, I remember Mrs. Melody Davis, who joined the Mill City tour. She was cheerful, kind, and enjoyed taking photos. She has been an individual manuscript editor for many years and also performed in the play “Publish Like It’s 1999!” It seems that most members attending the CSE annual conference are like her—dedicated individual editors who volunteer to support the CSE community. I believe this spirit forms the foundation of the CSE.

I also met Mia Ricci, a member of the program committee, who is Indonesian American. She showed genuine interest in our poster about Asian journals, especially since Indonesia was highlighted as a key country. She is the director of Publications Operations at the American Geophysical Union and serves on committees for CSE, the Coalition for Diversity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC), and the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP). I believe that Korean Council of Science Editors (KCSE) may consider inviting her as a speaker or pursuing opportunities for collaboration with the organizations she is involved in.

As mentioned, I reconnected with Tony Alves, whom I first met in 2018 at the Council of Asian Science Editors’ conference in Bogor, Indonesia. He played a significant role at the conference and served as an expert on peer review. He expressed interest in participating in the next Asian Science Editors Conference and Workshop 2026 in New Delhi, India, and may also be a speaker at future KCSE conferences.

Lastly, I was fortunate to meet Dr. David Mellor of COS. I have referenced his slides in my presentations on open science, and I hope to communicate with him further about open science and US public access policy.

Throughout the conference, I met new people, reconnected with experts I had hoped to see, and learned extensively about current trends in journal publishing. I believe these experiences will be invaluable assets for my future work in Korean scholarly publishing.

Notes

Conflict of interest

Tae-Sul Seo serves as an editorial board member of this journal, but was not involved in the peer review or decision-making process of this article. No other potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

Funding

This work was partially supported by a travel grant from the Korean Council of Science Editors.

Data availability

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed.

Supplementary materials

Fig. 1.

View of a street near the venue in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.

Fig. 2.

2025 Council of Science Editors Annual Meeting program overview.

Fig. 3.

Flour milling building ruin in the Mill City Museum (Minneapolis, MN, USA).

Fig. 4.

Cast for the play, “Publish Like It’s 1999!”

Fig. 5.

A photograph of the author with David Mellor (Center for Open Science).

Fig. 6.

Tony Alves (vice president of HighWire Press) presenting on decentralized peer reviews.

Fig. 7.

The author and Jaegyun Park (Dankook University) in front of their poster.

References

• 1. Council of Science Editors (CSE). 2025 CSE Annual Meeting schedule [Internet]. CSE; [cited 2025 July 25]. Available from: https://cse.memberclicks.net/annual-meeting-2025-schedule.

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References

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