The ASAPbio community is undergoing a refresh for 2025. There will be clearer routes to getting involved in ASAPbio activities and a greater emphasis on our amazing community. To achieve this, we’re launching two new programs; a Residency program and Special Interest Groups.
Our community is evolving
In 2024 we introduced two changes to our community initiatives. The first was a revamping of our highly successful Fellows program where we created two tracks; a Culture & Community track and a projects track. Our Culture & Community (C&C) track consists of monthly cohort calls as the previous iteration of the program did, with the addition of some more personalized meetings, and culminating in the delivery of local preprint-focussed talks by the Fellows. The projects track is now an optional component to the Fellows program to enable those with more limited time to still participate.
The second change was the introduction of Lunch & Learn sessions and a focus on video-content. The purpose of this was to reach wider audiences and create greater interest in preprints and ASAPbio whilst also providing important context and discussions around scholarly publishing. These sessions proved to be the most popular YouTube content ASAPbio has ever done, and we received many positive comments.
Sunsetting of old programs
In 2025, we are reassessing our larger community initiative offerings. As part of this, some initiatives are being sunset to make room for two brand new initiatives launching in 2025.
Local Hubs
Our local hubs program was sunset at the end of 2024. We had 5 hubs spread across 3 continents with local hub leads delivering multiple sessions and helping to recruit new 2024 ASAPbio Fellows. On its own, the local hubs program was having limited impact and so is being sunset to better deploy our resources and the effort of our community. In particular, we are keen to expand some of the efforts from individual hubs, such as running local graduate-level training courses.
We highly value the benefits of localised programs and, to better align with our new strategic direction, we will be incorporating some of the previous local hub activity into a brand new initiative that is launching later in 2025.
Community Action Group
The Community Action Group (CAG) was created to provide the most active members of our community with a dedicated yearly project. This provided networking and collaborative opportunities whilst advancing the strategic goals of ASAPbio. In 2024, the CAG embarked on a writing campaign to increase preprint awareness. Collectively, we wrote landscaping articles outlining the adoption and use of preprints in different fields for Molecular Biology and Biochemistry (FEBS), Developmental Biology (The Node) and Physiology (Physiology magazine).
The CAG activities are being sunset as they will be incorporated into one of our new initiatives that has a greater focus on the individuals involved.
Lunch & Learn
Despite the success of the Lunch & Learn series, these shorter sessions will not be returning for 2025. These sessions were designed to provide important context and historical aspects to scholarly publishing and academia.
Rest assured, our 2025 community schedule is packed with exciting community calls and featuring some amazing speakers.
Moving forward with two new initiatives
It may seem as though we are reducing the number of community initiatives, but in actuality, we are expanding our efforts and community engagement. Later in 2025, we will be launching two new initiatives: a virtual residency program and a number of Special Interest Groups (SIGs).
Our virtual residency program will initially be invite-only for the most part, with the additional option of joining by submitting a funded community project. This program enables us to bring a number of previous and new efforts together, better highlighting the community members involved. ASAPbio residents will be provided with an advanced training program, given access to paid-for software such as Canva and Zoom to further support their development and have access to up to $500 in funding. We will initially limit this program to 5-10 residents in 2025.
We will also be launching four Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that align with our strategic direction and focus. The topics of the SIGs have been chosen by our community and will focus on:
- Reinforcing the potential of preprints and expanding their full uptake
- Role of preprints in improving trust and integrity
- Preprints in the Global South
- Institutional recognition of preprints
The SIGs will provide an opportunity for various community members and stakeholders to come together and collaboratively work on progressing a particular effort. Each group will collectively decide on how they will advance their focus, through a dedicated project, organising a meeting, or through continued working groups that may coordinate efforts across services.
Whereas the residency program is focussed on individuals and individual effort, the SIGs are focussed on groups and collaborative effort.
Join us in the preprint revolution
From mid-2025, our community initiatives will comprise:
This restructure creates multiple routes to getting involved and progressing through ASAPbio. For those new to preprints, the Fellows program represents the ideal starting point whereas previous Fellows who want to be highly involved are supported by the Residency program and SIGs. For individuals who have more creative ideas or wish to run their own preprint-related project, then the community projects provide this opportunity. Finally, the Crowd preprint review program enables early career researchers to support preprints and gain reviewing experience with as low an entry barrier as possible.
We hope that you’re as excited as we are to see the new changes coming up. If you’d like to get involved, then you can join the crowd review program as a reviewer, join the Fellows program, or submit a proposal for your very own community project.
You can also join our newsletter and slack community which will be the first places that we announce the launch of the new residency program and SIGs.
The ASAPbio community is undergoing a refresh for 2025. There will be clearer routes to getting involved in ASAPbio activities and a greater emphasis on our amazing community. To achieve this, we’re launching two new programs; a Residency program and Special Interest Groups.
Our community is evolving
In 2024 we introduced two changes to our community initiatives. The first was a revamping of our highly successful Fellows program where we created two tracks; a Culture & Community track and a projects track. Our Culture & Community (C&C) track consists of monthly cohort calls as the previous iteration of the program did, with the addition of some more personalized meetings, and culminating in the delivery of local preprint-focussed talks by the Fellows. The projects track is now an optional component to the Fellows program to enable those with more limited time to still participate.
The second change was the introduction of Lunch & Learn sessions and a focus on video-content. The purpose of this was to reach wider audiences and create greater interest in preprints and ASAPbio whilst also providing important context and discussions around scholarly publishing. These sessions proved to be the most popular YouTube content ASAPbio has ever done, and we received many positive comments.
Sunsetting of old programs
In 2025, we are reassessing our larger community initiative offerings. As part of this, some initiatives are being sunset to make room for two brand new initiatives launching in 2025.
Local Hubs
Our local hubs program was sunset at the end of 2024. We had 5 hubs spread across 3 continents with local hub leads delivering multiple sessions and helping to recruit new 2024 ASAPbio Fellows. On its own, the local hubs program was having limited impact and so is being sunset to better deploy our resources and the effort of our community. In particular, we are keen to expand some of the efforts from individual hubs, such as running local graduate-level training courses.
We highly value the benefits of localised programs and, to better align with our new strategic direction, we will be incorporating some of the previous local hub activity into a brand new initiative that is launching later in 2025.
Community Action Group
The Community Action Group (CAG) was created to provide the most active members of our community with a dedicated yearly project. This provided networking and collaborative opportunities whilst advancing the strategic goals of ASAPbio. In 2024, the CAG embarked on a writing campaign to increase preprint awareness. Collectively, we wrote landscaping articles outlining the adoption and use of preprints in different fields for Molecular Biology and Biochemistry (FEBS), Developmental Biology (The Node) and Physiology (Physiology magazine).
The CAG activities are being sunset as they will be incorporated into one of our new initiatives that has a greater focus on the individuals involved.
Lunch & Learn
Despite the success of the Lunch & Learn series, these shorter sessions will not be returning for 2025. These sessions were designed to provide important context and historical aspects to scholarly publishing and academia.
Rest assured, our 2025 community schedule is packed with exciting community calls and featuring some amazing speakers.
Moving forward with two new initiatives
It may seem as though we are reducing the number of community initiatives, but in actuality, we are expanding our efforts and community engagement. Later in 2025, we will be launching two new initiatives: a virtual residency program and a number of Special Interest Groups (SIGs).
Our virtual residency program will initially be invite-only for the most part, with the additional option of joining by submitting a funded community project. This program enables us to bring a number of previous and new efforts together, better highlighting the community members involved. ASAPbio residents will be provided with an advanced training program, given access to paid-for software such as Canva and Zoom to further support their development and have access to up to $500 in funding. We will initially limit this program to 5-10 residents in 2025.
We will also be launching four Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that align with our strategic direction and focus. The topics of the SIGs have been chosen by our community and will focus on:
The SIGs will provide an opportunity for various community members and stakeholders to come together and collaboratively work on progressing a particular effort. Each group will collectively decide on how they will advance their focus, through a dedicated project, organising a meeting, or through continued working groups that may coordinate efforts across services.
Join us in the preprint revolution
From mid-2025, our community initiatives will comprise:
This restructure creates multiple routes to getting involved and progressing through ASAPbio. For those new to preprints, the Fellows program represents the ideal starting point whereas previous Fellows who want to be highly involved are supported by the Residency program and SIGs. For individuals who have more creative ideas or wish to run their own preprint-related project, then the community projects provide this opportunity. Finally, the Crowd preprint review program enables early career researchers to support preprints and gain reviewing experience with as low an entry barrier as possible.
We hope that you’re as excited as we are to see the new changes coming up. If you’d like to get involved, then you can join the crowd review program as a reviewer, join the Fellows program, or submit a proposal for your very own community project.
You can also join our newsletter and slack community which will be the first places that we announce the launch of the new residency program and SIGs.