Strategy review for Ca’ Foscari University press

Ca’ Foscari Press (or Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, in Italian) is the university press of Ca’ Foscari University in Venice. Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari commissioned an independent evaluation of the Press, which was conducted jointly by Research Consulting and SIRIS Academic.

The evaluation aimed to identify opportunities and strategies to:

• address current challenges arising from open science and research evaluation reform;
• understand and leverage the Press’ strengths to optimise positioning and marketing activities;
• develop and promote existing technological skills and solutions; and
• identify current limitations and define concrete actions to overcome them.

The project involved a number of conversations with international experts and stakeholders across digital humanities, open science, research funding and innovative publication practices. Using OpenAlex data, we produced a map of the competitive landscape that benchmarked Ca’ Foscari Press against a set of competitors in Europe and North America, aiming to identify subject areas in which they excelled.

Our final output was a strategy report, which was presented to senior leaders and decision-makers at Ca’ Foscari University and included a proposed roadmap for future action in line with the identified strengths and opportunities for improvement.