For immediate release – Oxford, UK – September 7th, 2026 – Kudos, the platform for showcasing research, has announced the launch of Phase II of Taming the Crocodile, a major industry initiative ensuring scholarly and scientific content remains discoverable and used as AI increasingly mediates information discovery. EBSCOHost has joined the initiative as a new headline sponsor and will help to steer the project alongside Wiley, Emerald Publishing, Springer Nature and Silverchair. Other confirmed sponsors continuing from Phase I include American Physical Society, Clarivate, Elsevier, IEEE, Oxford University Press, Taylor & Francis and Wolters Kluwer. Phase II will move beyond mapping the problem to developing practical solutions, including a draft code of practice for metadata and AI discoverability, a cross-sector benchmark of publishers’ responses to AI-mediated discovery, and a detailed observational study of how researchers actually find and evaluate information when AI is involved.
A limited number of sponsorship places remain open to further sponsors, but the project will kick off this month to ensure that recommendations can be put into action as soon as possible. Phase II will include:
“AI is changing the research journey, but the need for trusted, authoritative information hasn’t changed,” says Sam Brooks, Executive Vice President, Library Services, Publisher Services, and Content, EBSCO Information Services. “Our industry has an opportunity to help shape how high-quality scholarly content is discovered and surfaced in these new environments. By working together on practical standards and best practices, we can help ensure that researchers continue to find and connect with the information they can trust.”
“Ensuring content is visible and discoverable via AI is a huge priority for our sector – even provenance, attribution and metrics only matter if authoritative content is actually being surfaced in the first place,” adds project lead Charlie Rapple, co-founder of Kudos. “I’m looking forward to building on the insights from Phase I and drawing on my experience setting up the KBART initiative, which went on to become a NISO code of practice, to help publishers, aggregators and platforms optimize AI discoverability as quickly as possible.”
New sponsors will immediately gain access to the Phase I report, which includes findings, analysis and recommendations from two surveys (11,500 researchers and 200 librarians) and an environment scan of more than 300 sources. A comprehensive list of actions sets out priorities for marketing, editorial, customer service, account management and technology teams, as well as a roadmap for the longer-term strategic response. A comprehensive Phase II report, with a quick-read quick-action executive summary, will be delivered at the end of 2026.
For more information, contact charlie@growkudos.com or visit https://info.growkudos.com/croc-pub
— ENDS —
Contact:
Charlie Rapple
charlie@growkudos.com
About Kudos
Kudos (growkudos.com) is the platform for showcasing research, helping more people find, understand and use it. Over 650,000 researchers use Kudos to bring science to life through the power of storytelling. Kudos is the only toolkit designed specifically to drive research communications, engagement and impact, helping researchers cross boundaries, achieve more influence, and gain more recognition.