Anyone who is prepared to discuss and work on issues relevant to the scope of the Institute and the year’s theme is eligible to put together a team and submit a proposal.

We especially welcome diverse groups, that contain varied perspectives, backgrounds, and expertise, including people from outside the United States. If you have a project you think would benefit from participating in this Institute, and that other participants in the Institute would benefit from engaging with, we encourage you to apply, regardless of the stage in your career, background, or institutional affiliation.

In other words, students, independent scholars, secondary school educators, professions not usually associated with academia – don’t exclude yourself, but do form teams that include others who come from a different background than yours.

SCI is an ideal place to bring together perspectives and expertise that may not normally intersect, and to build understandings and new models based on them. It is not just for people working in libraries or publishing or other sectors that are central to scholarly communication – we encourage you to have team members from professions and backgrounds that may not typically factor into scholarly communication discussions but whose expertise and perspectives can contribute to your project and the overall theme. For example, in the year when “storytelling in scholarly communication” was the theme, teams included journalists, artists, musicians, secondary school teachers, children’s book authors, and more. Teams in past years have included students as well as deans and provosts. Use your imagination and invite people who aren’t necessarily scholcomm “usual suspects” to be part of your team.

We especially encourage teams with participants from the Global South, historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic serving institutions, tribal colleges and universities, community colleges, K-12 schools, independent scholars, and other institutions and backgrounds whose needs and perspectives and communities are often overlooked in discussions about scholarly communication and the people and infrastructures and processes that support it. These voices and perspectives are needed more than ever, and we hope SCI can provide a platform to help bring them to the center of conversations about scholarly communication.