UKSG

Professional Association Servicesuksg.org

UKSG (UK Serials Group) is a UK charity and membership organisation, founded 1996, that connects the scholarly communications community through an annual conference, seminars, webinars, the Insights journal, and the UKSG eNews newsletter, serving librarians, publishers, vendors, and researchers.

Company typePrivate
Founded1996
HeadquartersWitney, United Kingdom
Headcount1–10
GTM typeB2B
OfferingServices

What UKSG does

UKSG (UK Serials Group) is a UK-registered non-profit membership organisation and registered charity (charity number 1093946, company number 4145775, limited by guarantee) that has served the scholarly communications community since its founding in 1996. It is headquartered in Witney, England, and operates with a 1–10 employee team supplemented by volunteer leadership, including Executive Director Bev Acreman and Chair Charlie Rapple.

UKSG's product portfolio is event-, publication-, and community-led rather than technology-led. Its flagship is the Annual Conference, now in its 49th year and hosted in 2026 at the University of Glasgow; supporting this are a one-day November Conference, the UKSG Forum, recurring online seminars on Open Educational Resources and Introduction to E-Resources, free and paid webinars, podcasts, the fortnightly UKSG eNews newsletter (members-only), the Insights journal, and the JISCMail Lis-e-resources discussion list. The underlying 'technology' is community infrastructure — a website for membership and event registration plus a JISCMail list — rather than proprietary software.

UKSG generates revenue through a combination of institutional and individual membership subscriptions, paid event and seminar registrations (members £70+VAT, non-members £82+VAT per seminar), conference sponsorship from publishers and vendors, and the November one-day conference. Its go-to-market is community-led: it reaches academic librarians, publishers, content providers, consultants, and intermediaries in the UK and internationally through the conference circuit, a bimonthly newsletter, webinars, and social channels. Named participants span more than ten UK universities (Glasgow, Lancaster, King's College London, Edinburgh, York, Leeds, Durham, Bristol, Essex, Sheffield, Southampton, Brunel) and major scholarly publishers (Springer Nature, Elsevier, Wiley, De Gruyter Brill, Emerald) and ed-tech firms (VitalSource, EBSCO, Gale).

UKSG firmographics

Firmographics

Name: UKSG
Legal name: UKSG
Website: https://uksg.org
Company type: Private
Founded year: 1996
Operating status: Operating
Headcount range: 1–10 employees
Short description: UKSG (UK Serials Group) is a UK charity and membership organisation, founded 1996, that connects the scholarly communications community through an annual conference, seminars, webinars, the Insights journal, and the UKSG eNews newsletter, serving librarians, publishers, vendors, and researchers.
Ownership category
akta.pro rank

UKSG industry classification

Industry

Product category: Professional Association Services
NAICS: Professional Organizations (81392), Business Associations (813910), Information (51)
SIC: Services-Membership Organizations (8600), Services-Educational Services (8200), Miscellaneous Publishing (2741)
akta.pro primary industry: Scholarly Society & Association Publishing (EDAGAFAK)
akta.pro secondary industry: Scholarly Societies & Conference Proceedings Publishing (MPAJABAK)

Keywords

Scholarly communications
Academic conferences
Professional membership
Library networking
Research publications

Where UKSG is headquartered

Location

Headquarters

HQ city: Witney
HQ country: United Kingdom
HQ region: Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

UKSG business model

Business model

GTM type: B2B
Offering type: Services
Cost components: Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

Membership fees: UKSG generates revenue through membership fees from organisations and individual professionals in the scholarly communications sector. Discounted member rates are available for events and seminars.
Event registrations: Revenue from event registrations including annual conferences, seminars, and webinars. UKSG membership rate is £70+VAT while non-membership rate is £82.00+VAT for seminars.

Pricing tiers

Model	Billing	Price
Subscription	Per event	UKSG membership rate for events
One time/ perpetual license	Per event	Non-membership rate for events
Freemium	Pay-as-you-go	Free webinars for members and non-members

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels7 records

UKSG product offering

Product offering

Core offering

UKSG is a community-run membership organisation that connects the scholarly communications knowledge community through conferences, seminars, webinars, podcasts, publications (Insights journal and UKSG eNews newsletter), and the Lis-e-resources discussion list. It engages librarians, publishers, content providers, vendors, researchers, and intermediaries worldwide, and funds its activities through membership fees and event registration revenues.

Product overview

UKSG (UK Serials Group) is a community-run membership organization connecting the knowledge community in scholarly communications. Rather than a unified technology product, UKSG offers a portfolio of events, publications, and community resources including: annual and November conferences, online seminars on topics like Open Educational Resources and E-Resources management, free webinars, podcasts, the UKSG eNews (members-only newsletter published fortnightly), Insights journal, and the Lis-e-resources discussion list. These offerings serve librarians, publishers, vendors, researchers, and other professionals across the scholarly information industry worldwide.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

UKSG Annual Conference
UKSG November Conference
UKSG Forum
UKSG Open Educational Resources Online Seminar
UKSG Introduction to E-Resources Online Seminar
Seminars and Student Workshops
UKSG Webinars
Insights Journal
UKSG eNews
UKSG Podcasts
UKSG Discussion List (Lis-e-resources)

Companies that use UKSG

Customer profile

Named customers20 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

UKSG technology and API

Technology

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API: No
API docs
API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

UKSG partnerships and signals

Strategic signal

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

UKSG competitors and assessment

Company assessment

Direct peers

ALPSP (Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers): International membership association for learned and professional society publishers, offering training, events, and publications. Comparable mission and member profile to UKSG's publisher-side constituency.
NISO (National Information Standards Organization): Standards organisation developing solutions for information management and access in scholarly publishing and libraries. Comparable community/standards-development role within the same ecosystem.
Charleston Conference: Annual conference and community focused on the librarian–publisher interface in serials and e-resources management. Highly comparable to UKSG's annual conference and seminar programming.
Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP): Professional association serving the scholarly publishing community through events, training, and publications. Mirrors UKSG's cross-stakeholder convening model in North America.
NASIG (North American Serials Interest Group): US-based membership organisation focused on the scholarly communication and serials lifecycle, bringing together librarians, publishers, and vendors — directly analogous to UKSG's role in the UK market.

Broad incumbents

SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition): Advocacy and community organisation for open access and scholarly communications reform. Operates adjacent to UKSG's mission, particularly around Open Access topics covered in UKSG's webinars and seminars.
STM (International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers): Global trade association for scholarly publishers; broader and larger than UKSG but operates in the same scholarly communications space with overlapping publisher members (Elsevier, Wiley, Springer Nature).
IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions): Global umbrella body for library associations. Broader than UKSG but serves overlapping academic-library members with a shared interest in scholarly information policy and standards.

Regional players

European Association of Science Editors (EASE): European membership association for science editors across the research lifecycle. Comparable community-led membership model and training/programming focus, though more editor-centric.

Emerging players

FORCE11: Community-driven organisation focused on the future of research communication and e-scholarship. Comparable community-led, volunteer-governed model but more research-communication-and-data focused.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

UKSG financial estimates

Financial estimate

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

UKSG leadership team

Management profile

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

UKSG funding detail

Funding detail

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

UKSG M&A and investment

M&A and investment

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about UKSG

What does UKSG do?

Is UKSG a public or private company?

UKSG is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.

When was UKSG founded?

UKSG was founded in 1996. It employs 1 to 10 people.

Where is UKSG based?

UKSG is headquartered in Witney, United Kingdom, in the Europe region.

How does UKSG make money?

Two revenue lines are on record. Membership fees are the primary driver. The others are event registrations.

Who are UKSG's main competitors?

Direct peers on record are ALPSP (Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers), NISO (National Information Standards Organization), Charleston Conference, Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) and NASIG (North American Serials Interest Group). Broad incumbents are SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), STM (International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers) and IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions). European Association of Science Editors (EASE) is listed as a regional player. FORCE11 is listed as an emerging player.

Does UKSG have an API?

No public API is recorded for UKSG.

What industry is UKSG in?

UKSG's product category is Professional Association Services. Its primary akta.pro industry code is EDAGAFAK, Scholarly Society & Association Publishing, with a secondary code of MPAJABAK, Scholarly Societies & Conference Proceedings Publishing. Its NAICS code is 81392 and its SIC code is 8600.