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2021-12-31-accounts

UKSG

(A company limited by guarantee)

REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2021

Charity number: 1093946 Company number: 4145775

CONNECTING THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY

UKSG

UKSG

TRUSTEES' ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2021

Section 1:

Reference and Administrative Details of the Charity, Its Trustees and Advisers

a) Charity name: UKSG

b) Charity Registration No.: 1093946

Company Registration No.: 4145775

c) Principal and Registered office: Witney Business & Innovation Centre, Windrush House, Windrush Industrial Park, Burford Road, Witney, Oxon OX29 7DX

d) Names of the charity's trustees (who are also directors of the company) on the date the report was approved:

Andrew Barker (elected 2015; Chair - fourth year)

Joanna Ball (elected 2018, Vice Chair – second year)

Dominic Broadhurst (elected 2017)

Rob Johnson (elected 2021)

Gareth Smith (elected 2021)

Graham Stone (elected 2020)

Charlie Rapple (elected 2019; Treasurer – second year)

Katherine Rose (elected 2019)

e) Names of any others who served as a charity trustee in the financial year in question (i.e. during January to December 2021 ):

Colleen Campbell (resigned 2021)

Lorraine Estelle (resigned 2021)

Anna Grigson (resigned 2021)

f) Staff responsible for day-to-day management:

Bev Acreman (Executive Director – full time)

Samira Koelle (Events Assistant – part-time)

Vicky Drew (Events Executive – part time)

Chris Miller (Accounts Administrator – full time, left July 2021)

Elaine Koster (Publications Associate – part time)

Brian Lewis (Digital Marketing – part time, contract)

g) Other relevant organisations:

Bank: The Co-operative Bank plc, 13 New Road, Oxford OX1 1LG

Accountant: The M Group, 4 Witan Way, Witney, Oxfordshire OX28 6FF

Auditor: Just Audit & Assurance Ltd, 37 Market Square, Witney, Oxon OX28 6RE

Solicitor: Blake Morgan LLP, New Kings Court, Tollgate, Chandler's Ford, Eastleigh SO53 3LG

Section 2:

Structure, Governance and Management Public Benefit

The trustees confirm that they have complied with the requirements of section 4 of the Charities Act 2011 to have due regard to the public benefit guidance published by the Charity Commission for England and Wales.

Governing Document

UKSG is a company limited by guarantee and not having a share capital. It was incorporated on 23 January 2001 and is governed by its Memorandum and Articles of Association, which were updated and formally adopted in January 2020. UKSG has been registered as a charity with the Charity Commission since 26 September 2002.

UKSG is a professional interest group for the information resources community. The objects for which the company was established are laid out in the Memorandum as:

The advancement of education in the art and science of librarianship and data recall with particular reference to the management and classification of serials and similar periodicals, both nationally and internationally, and the conduct of research into the said subject, and to publish the useful results of such research.

Membership of the organisation is obtained by application to the Executive Director. Most members are corporate/institutional but there are a few memberships held by individuals. At December 31[st] 2021, there were 428 members each of whom will have been requested to agree to contribute £1 in the event of the charity being wound up. UKSG does not act as an industry pressure group, its main strength being

perceived as its unique function of bringing together all parties in the scholarly information communication chain.

Organisational Structure

The Board of Trustees, which is made up of a maximum of 9 members, administers the charity:

There are four Board meetings per year, one of which is dedicated to planning the organisation's annual conference for the following year. Subcommittees are in place to cover Education, Insights , Outreach and Engagement and Research & Innovation. Chairs of these subcommittees are elected from within the membership and are currently:

Staff Structure: all staff report in to Bev Acreman, Executive Director.

The organisation relies on bought-in services for the editing and hosting of Insights , and for attracting advertising and sponsorship revenue in connection with the seminars and the annual conference.

Recruitment and Appointment of Trustees

Each year all members of UKSG are invited to submit one candidate to stand for election to the Board of Trustees. The relevant information, which includes a fact sheet about the responsibilities of Trustees, is posted to our website and the link emailed to members, together with details of the organisation's AGM, held online in 2021, and at which the newly elected Board members are formally announced. Potential candidates are also discussed at meetings of the Board and on occasion a direct approach will be made to someone who the Board considers will bring to the organisation a particularly valuable range of knowledge, experience or expertise. All members of UKSG are encouraged to cast their votes to elect Board members, a process now conducted securely online, and it is expected that those elected will have been selected for their knowledge of, enthusiasm for and commitment to the information resources industry.

Trustee Induction and Training

All those on the Board will be working within a sector of the information resources industry, be it in libraries, publishing, intermediate services, database provision, system design or consultancy, and should therefore be well equipped with a good understanding of the general environment in which UKSG operates.

New trustees benefit from a period of informal mentoring from an existing Board member, and there are formal induction guidelines which are intended to help new trustees to feel welcomed, to understand the proactive culture of UKSG, and to be able to make a positive contribution to the work of the organisation quickly and effectively.

Trustees are provided with the minutes of the Board meetings held during the previous year, as well as useful reference material from the Charity Commission about the duties of Trustees. Apart from attending Board meetings, all Trustees are actively encouraged to become involved in one or more of UKSG's standard activities, for example sitting on one of the subcommittees or being involved in the planning of major events.

Decision Making

Significant items that have an impact on UKSG's governance, budget, overall mission and annual conference are always discussed at a meeting of the full Board of Trustees and, wherever possible, a decision is made based on an overall consensus. With a Board that is highly representative of the membership in terms of the different sectors represented, the Trustees are confident that major decisions are taken with the interests of the full membership as its prime focus.

Changes to the Memorandum and Articles of Association are presented to the membership at the Annual General Meeting for discussion and approval, or at an Extraordinary General Meeting. The annual subscription rates for members are also presented to the AGM and approved by those in attendance.

Our 2021 AGM was held online in May 2021, 79 members registered to attend, and 56 attended.

New ideas and developments that are discussed at any of the subcommittee meetings and which are likely to have an impact on any of the factors mentioned in the first paragraph of this section are always referred to the main Board of Trustees for consideration and approval.

The strategic goals are detailed in the objectives and mission on the UKSG website and reflect the feedback from UKSG members and others, in addition to informing the organisation's priorities over the next few years. (See also Sections 3, 4 and 6.)

A Remuneration Subcommittee, comprising the Chair, Treasurer and Honorary Secretary, meets once a year to consider the performance and salaries of the organisation's employees and to approve any changes that are felt necessary.

Risk Management

UKSG reviews annually its Risk Management Policy. The associated Risk Register, managed by the ViceChair, itemises the major areas of risk facing the organisation in fulfilling its charitable aims. Each risk is accorded a priority rating, based on the likelihood of occurrence and the severity of impact. The appropriate management responsibility and a brief description of how UKSG attempts to mitigate each risk are detailed. The retained net risk is listed, together with any further action required, and a date for review.

Each subcommittee also reviews on a regular basis the risks associated with its area of work, with new risks added when the organisation moves into new areas of activity, and risks that have become irrelevant removed.

Where appropriate, the financial risk is quantified. The single biggest risk remains the funds committed to UKSG's Annual Conference ahead of the event. We seek the appropriate insurances to cover the risk, however pandemics are specifically excluded.

The Impact of COVID-19 on our charitable activities

We have performed better in 2021 being more prepared for the effects of the pandemic and successfully pivoted to a digital delivery model for our events. See Section 5, Finances for more detail.

Section 3:

Objectives and Activities

The mission of UKSG is: 'To connect the knowledge community and encourage the exchange of ideas on scholarly communication.’ In a dynamic environment, UKSG works to:

Following a wide-ranging member survey and strategic discussions amongst staff and committee members, we reaffirmed the values of UKSG in 2018 as:

Research and Innovation sub-committee

Facilitating research and innovation is a key theme and activity area for UKSG and we have often been at the heart of collaborative research initiatives which have developed solutions to industry• wide issues and promoted standards for best practice. Due to the income loss in 2020, and reduced income in 2021, this committee was “rested” in 2020 pending further review.

Outreach & Engagement sub-committee

The Outreach and Engagement Committee is in its fourth year and continues to focus on looking after UKSG members and their interests, to ensure we raise awareness of UKSG activities and member benefits.

At the start of the year the committee advertised for new members, and grew in size from 10 to 17. The spread of members is currently slightly skewed towards librarians (eight committee members), but is broadly representative of the UKSG with four publishers and five intermediaries making up the committee.

The committee meets virtually three times per year to discuss ongoing projects. Between May and August, the committee conducted a large-scale membership consultation consisting of an online survey and 13 interviews, followed by detailed data analysis. This resulted in a report of the member feedback that was used by the Board of Trustees to inform the development of the new vision for UKSG. From October, the committee worked in collaboration with the chair to develop a promotional strategy for the new vision, to be deployed in 2022.

While work on supporting the new vision has been a key area of focus, the committee has continued work around the promotion of the students and early career professionals award for attendance at UKSG, and the Merriman Award which offers expenses paid attendance to both the UKSG and NASIG Annual

Conferences, and the student roadshows to embed UKSG’s work in the curriculum of library and publishing courses. Both of these activities have been affected by the Covid-19 Pandemic, and the committee has considered short term solutions, and longer-term strategies for post-pandemic re-establishment.

Bethany Logan from University of Sussex took over as interim chair in May 2021, standing in for Sarah Roughley Barake, University of Liverpool who is on parental leave.

Education and Events Subcommittee

In addition to the Annual and One-Day Conferences, the work of the Education and Events Subcommittee is central to UKSG’s objectives of encouraging professional awareness and realising public benefit by providing a programme of affordable seminars and workshops, some of which are located in the regional centres of the UK, as well as in London. Due to the ongoing effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic all seminars during 2021 were run as online events.

The events vary from introductory level seminars aimed at those new to the information community, to intermediate and advanced seminars on specific themes for those who wish to further their professional development. The Subcommittee continues to consider new themes for seminars, in response to demand from both members and non-members as well as developing and evolving current themes.

Although the landscape for staff development in terms of both budget and available staff time continues to be challenging, the numbers of delegates registering for our events in 2021 remain high compared to previous years when seminars were “in person” and at a similar level to 2020. This may be due to the reduced costs and time commitment for attendees with events being run online and at a lower cost compared to previous “in person” seminars. Delivering seminars online increases the reach of the events across the UK regions and we have seen an increase in attendance from non-UK delegates as a result. Further details of events run in 2021 are outlined in Section 4. The group continues to actively capture and reflect on feedback following events and it uses this information to inform future decisions concerning course development and planning.

During the course of the year there were a number of resignations from the Committee due to conflicting personal and work commitments. The Committee membership currently stands at 15 with a mix from both the library and publisher communities.

UKSG is also aware of the requirements of its membership beyond the UK and the difficulties of meeting their training needs and a freely available webinar series continues to attract high numbers of registrations from both within and beyond the UK. The Webinar Officer develops a programme of online events on a range of professional topics, working in conjunction with the members of other UKSG Subcommittees to gather ideas for topics and speakers. The Events Assistant leads the organisation of, and technical support for, the webinar programme. The registration process continues to help the Webinar Officer understand the profile of webinar participants and inform future webinar planning.

During the course of 2021 a total of 2,595 people attended a UKSG event.

Insights

The journal’s aim is to disseminate news, information and publications, and raise awareness of services that support the scholarly information sector. Insights is peer-reviewed, open access and offers a mix of research articles, case studies and opinion pieces.

The journal is managed by the Insights Editorial Board. The 2021 members of the Board were Bev Acreman (UKSG), Daniel Albertsson (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences - SLU), Rick Anderson (Brigham Young University), Joanna Ball (Royal Danish Library), Jessica Edwards (Gale Cengage), Jill Emery (Portland State University), Victoria Gardner (Taylor & Francis), Rosie Higman (University of Sheffield), Roy Kaufman (Copyright Clearance Center), Charlie Rapple (Kudos), Lucy Sinclair (Royal College of Surgeons) and Graham

Stone (Jisc - Chair). Lorraine Estelle (COUNTER) and Steve Sharp (Sheffield Hallam University) are now in their eleventh year as joint editors of Insights .

Insights is a ‘diamond’ open access journal, which does not charge authors fees and is free to read. Publication costs are paid in full by UKSG. However, due to the unprecedented circumstances of 2020 and the financial implications of the cancellation of the 2020 conference, a decision was made to reduce the number of articles published in the journal to enable the journal to continue publishing without a paywall to authors or readers. In 2021 a total of 28 articles were published: a mix of research articles, case studies and opinion pieces.

Articles continue to be well received and receive good usage, social media comments and an increasing amount of citations. Insights continues to receive an increasing number of unsolicited submissions, which is an indication of the continued success of the journal.

The journal launched a special collection: “Discovery is the researcher’s dream”, which compiles previously published articles from the journal, in October 2021. This special collection on improving metadata and resource discovery gives an overview of some of the debates around metadata and discovery over the previous ten years and ends with some important questions about the role of the library as search engine technology finds and delivers ‘everything’ to the desktop. The guest editors were Rebekah Cummings and Magaly Bascones.

UKSG eNews

The UKSG eNews member newsletter is published every two weeks and provides up-to-the-minute news of current issues and developments within the global knowledge community, sent to more than 2,100 member contacts. The issues include an editorial, UKSG news, industry news and company news.

Section 4:

Achievement and performance

Andrew Barker is now in his fourth year as chair having been elected in 2018.

The process for electing members to the committee for 2021/2022 saw 8 people stand for election.

The appointment of three successful candidates provided a balance of representation of the different UKSG main ‘stakeholder’ groups/communities: Libraries, Publishers, and Intermediaries.

Conferences held in 2021

Annual (Digital) Conference – over 1,100 delegates attended our annual conference from 42 countries

November 2021: UKSG November Conference - "Open Scholarship 2021: the good, the bad and the ugly" We had a high number of delegates attend – over 300 – and excellent feedback on the content and delivery.

Seminars and training events held in 2021

We ran four seminars during 2021, attended by 223 delegates . For all the seminars that were run as online events there was an option to attend on demand rather than live, although the majority attended as live events:

There was no event for the Further Education community in 2021 due to external factors. It was decided to postpone the activity until 2022 and try a different approach with a series of short online seminars aimed at this sector.

Webinars held in 2021

We ran a programme of 4 webinars in 2021. There has been a natural increase in competition for online content since the start of the pandemic and this has had an impact on our pipeline. We will be reviewing the process in 2022.

Those that had registered were able to either attend the live webinar or watch a recording at a later date:

A total of over 2,000 people registered to attend one or more of our webinars in 2021. Recordings for the webinars are available for reviewing after the event and as of December 2021 there have been over 900 views.

Membership Support & Member Inclusion

UKSG continues to offer a wide range of benefits to its members, for example:

Income received from membership fees and events is used responsibly by UKSG in its not-for-profit capacity for the benefit of the wider knowledge community and future generations of professionals working in scholarly communications. Still proving popular and well attended, the programme of webinars has continued to be run free of charge for everyone in the community.

The Outreach and Engagement sub-committee is responsible for increasing UKSG’s connections with its own community.

In 2021 we provided 52 free places at our events for those on furlough, unemployed, students and librarians in developing countries.

The committee is mixed with representatives from libraries, publishing houses, vendors and FE librarians and led by Sarah Roughley Barake (parental leave cover: Bethany Logan).

Member Inclusion

To improve members' knowledge of the scholarly information sector and support skills development

We continued to run a series of seminar events throughout 2021 and all seminars were delivered online. Attendance across the seminar series were at similar levels in 2021 to those in 202 0, and we continue to receive positive feedback from delegates :

”The breakout sessions were excellent and the opportunity to watch more than usual due to the prerecordings was great. (Annual Conference)

“Excellent introduction to licences and all the considerations around them. Covered a wide range of material, clearly and with examples. The course has given me a lot to think about and practical things to implement too. (Licensing Skills Seminar)

“This was one of the best online seminars I've attended - there was a lot of complex information on an unfamiliar and dry subject, but the pacing and delivery was excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed it, which I wasn't expecting to (!) and learnt a lot, and came away with the impression that all the other delegates felt the same.” (Licensing Skills Seminar)

UKSG continued to offer a programme of webinars in 2021 which allowed us to engage with our members both in the UK and internationally. Sessions aim to cater for all levels, running more practical and information-delivering sessions alongside opinion pieces, and providing a way for practitioners to keep up with new topics. As well as listening in live, registrants can listen to a recording of the session later, giving the opportunity to reach an audience regardless of time zone.

To facilitate community integration, networking, discussion and exchange of ideas

Annual Conference

Our annual conference is the principle means of fulfilling this aim and its absence was keenly felt in 2020, both for delegates and our exhibitors and sponsors. In 2021 we managed to pivot to a fully online conference with over 1100 delegates in attendance, and a positive response rate of 86% of delegates describing the conference as “excellent” or “good”. After the summer in 2021, we made all of the conference content freely available.

“ I thought the conference was really good an enjoyed being able to watch as many breakouts as I could, not having to make choices of which session to attend. ”

“ Well done and thank you for all the work that went in to organising the conference. It far exceeded my expectations! ”

Membership benefits remain substantial in terms of discounted attendance at events, communications and more.

Previously we have reported that UKSG will embark on greater involvement and inclusion, both of a wider spread of our community and of more people within current member organisations. To that end, we continually monitor and review pricing for events and we have continued our series of webinars that enable greater inclusion, particularly for international members.

We are also founder members and on the steering committee for C4Disc – Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communication and Think.Check.Submit where we actively promote the education programme aimed at helping researchers find the best outlets for their work.

The remainder of this section gives more details on activities in particular areas.

To facilitate community integration, networking, discussion and exchange

of ideas

The Joint UKSG/NASIG John Merriman Award was granted to two professionals in non-managerial positions relating to the management of e-resources, allowing them to visit the UKSG Annual Conference and that of our sister organisation, NASIG, in the US. Due to the pandemic, the winners attended both conferences online.

UKSG is grateful to its Merriman Award sponsor, member Taylor & Francis Group, which continues to make a generous contribution toward the costs of travel, accommodation and associated expenses for the UK winner.

To improve members’ knowledge of the scholarly information sector and support skills development

Our wide range of seminars and webinars again saw increases in attendance in 2021 building on an overhaul of their content and the processes for marketing them in 2019. We continue to see strong usage of the articles within Insights . Citations of Insights articles continue to grow, which is evidence of value to the wider scholarly information sector.

Marketing

Our social media presence continues to grow and have impact. The UKSG LinkedIn group has 527 followers (up from 405 in 2020), and our Facebook group has 597 followers (up from 563). Twitter (6,118 followers in 2021, up from 5,505 in 2020) is particularly active and is very busy during the big events with both commentary and practical information which benefits absent colleagues as well as those attending. We have also been utilising social media to promote individual articles published within Insights to great effect.

We continue to run surveys following each event to ensure that we are meeting member needs and take any ideas for future activities into consideration. Survey data shows satisfaction is consistently high.

Membership Support and Marketing

Marketing activities continue to support UKSG' s main areas of work defined by Education, Insights, Outreach and events, in particular the Annual Conference, One-Day Conference and UKSG Forum. They will also focus on priorities identified by the Main Committee such as:

• communications that reflect the inclusive, dynamic nature of UKSG and its unique role within the knowledge community

• engaging more with our members and publicising member benefits - for example, developments to our members-only newsletter, UKSG eNews

• a gap analysis to try to encourage new memberships among those organisations that are not UKSG members but that regularly make use of UKSG events and webinars.

Section 5

Financial Review Year end overview

The post of Treasurer was held in 2021 by Charlie Rapple for a second year.

Our financial plan for 2021 was cautious, recognizing the ongoing impact of the COVID pandemic on our community’s budgets, and the potential for this to have a negative effect on our membership and delegate / sponsor / exhibitor numbers. All 2021 events were run online, which incurred some additional costs for digital platforms, but this was offset by higher than expected incomes.

The Annual Conference represents our largest source of income, so there was risk involved in running this as an online event for the first time and thus our income projections were cautious. In fact, delegate numbers, sponsorship and advertising all exceeded budget and in total the Annual Conference generated income of £254,351 (budget: £206,925) against costs of £48,003 budget: £22,512). The success of the Annual Conference helped us to achieve a better than anticipated surplus in 2021 of £78,233. This may increase as we continue and complete discussions about deferred income from 2020.

The performance in 2021 has allowed us to plan ahead for a hybrid in-person/digital annual conference in 2022, which will increase our costs, and at the time of writing Covid will have an unknown impact on bookings.

We continue to spread our financial risk by holding our cash in multiple accounts; at the end of 2021, our cash position across bank accounts was £691,181. We continue to keep our coronavirus bounceback loan in a separate account, and are now paying interest on this. Our plans and timings for repayment of this loan are reviewed on a regular basis.

Reserves Policy : our reserves policy was updated at a Trustees meeting held on the 17 February 2022. Previously we held reserves to cover the cost of the annual conference. This has been revised to 80% of the costs of the annual conference (which amounts to £308K) and 35% of our operating costs (£79.8K).

Section 6:

Future Plans

UKSG is fortunate to be able to rely on so many willing volunteers, as well as on the dedication of its paid staff – Bev Acreman, UKSG Executive Director, Vicky Drew (Events Executive), Samira Koelle (Events Assistant), Brian Lewis (Digital Communications Associate), Elaine Koster (Publications Associate), and others who carry out specialised tasks for the group.

To improve members’ knowledge of the scholarly information sector and support skills development

For 2022 the Education and Events Subcommittee plans to

:

they fit as closely as possible the requirements of potential delegates and mitigate any risks for UKSG.

For 2021 the Insights Editorial Board plans to:

For 2022 the Outreach and Engagement Subcommittee plans to:

The Board of Trustees began the development of a new UKSG Strategic Plan during 2021, to build on the previous three years work in restructuring the UKSG staffing in 2018 and its governance review in 2019/20 and introduction of new byelaws in 2021.

Section 7:

Audit

The audit of the 2021 accounts was successfully completed by Just Audit & Assurance Ltd, who are pleased to continue as auditors for the year ended 31 December 2021.

Section 8:

Statement of Trustees' Responsibilities

The charity trustees (who are also the directors of UKSG for the purposes of company law) are responsible for preparing a trustees' annual report and financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

Company law requires the directors to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charitable company as at the balance sheet date and of its incoming resources and application of resources, including the net income or expenditure, for the financial year. In preparing those financial statements, the trustees should follow best practice and:

• observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP

• state whether applicable UK Accounting Standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements

• make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent; and

The trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charitable company and which enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. They are also responsible for safeguarding

the assets of the charitable company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

The trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information included on the charitable company's website. Legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

Statement as to disclosure to our auditors

In so far as the trustees are aware at the time of approving our trustees' annual report:

By order of the Board of Trustees

Chair: A C Barker

Date: 28 March 2022