AI’s Potential Impacts on Policy, Content Agreements, and the Competitive Academic Publishing Landscape
Sponsored by Springer Nature
Recorded on 09/29/2025
Posted in The Authority File
Episode 443
In the final episode of this four-part series, Harmen van Paradijs, Vice President STM Books Publishing & Books Business Optimization at Springer Nature, discusses future impacts of AI on academic publishing. To start, he chats about whether AI adoption has influenced submission and publication volumes at the publisher. Next, he forecasts how AI tools will shape the competitive landscape in scholarly publishing, noting that publishers’ ability and willingness to build robust AI policies will most influence the environment. Last, Harmen considers the balance between publishers implementing standardized AI policies and staying agile in the market and how AI might shape content agreements between publishers and libraries.
About the guest:

Harmen Van Paradijs
Vice President STM Books Publishing & Books Business Optimization
Springer Nature
Harmen van Paradijs is Vice President STM Books Publishing & Books Business Optimization at Springer Nature, based in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. He has responsibility for the STM Books publishing programs published under the imprints of Springer, Apress and Birkhäuser. He leads an editorial team located in more than twenty cities around the globe.
Harmen received his Master of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Upon obtaining his degree he joined McGraw-Hill Publishing Company as a sales representative in the Netherlands, and later as marketing manager in the UK. He returned to the Netherlands to join Pearson Education and held various marketing and sales roles. Harmen joined Springer in the Netherlands in 2005 as publishing editor for the education program. From 2012 to 2018 Harmen was based in Singapore, where he established the editorial operations for the Humanities, Social Sciences and Business/Economics in China, East Asia, Southeast Asia and Australasia.
Enjoy the conversation? Listen to the rest of the series:
- Innovative STEM Publishing Strategies in an Evolving AI Landscape
- How One Publisher Is Learning and Responding to Author Use of AI
- Addressing Librarians’ Research Integrity Concerns with AI Transparency and Detection Tools
