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Science is changing. The widespread reach and accessibility of the internet means that more people have access to more knowledge than ever before.

This is helping science at each end of the spectrum, from young scientists learning about the latest developments from CERN or on-board the International Space Station, through to the international, multi-disciplinary collaborations which make these projects possible and use the results to discover new breakthroughs and inspire new ideas.

When we first developed writeLaTeX in 2011 it was to solve a very specific problem we had – the lack of a sensible and efficient way to collaborate when we were writing our scientific papers and presentations. We've made a lot of progress in 2013, with over 40,000 authors now using our services from over 1,000 universities and institutions across the world, and this support has put us in a position to help tackle the wider challenges faced by scientific publishing.

What's become clear is that online collaboration shouldn’t stop at authors but should extend to the whole range of people involved in science and publishing - editors, reviewers, and readers too - and through our work with open access publishers we're helping to make science faster, more open and more transparent by bringing the whole scientific process into the cloud, from idea to writing to review to publication.

With 1.8 million scientific papers published every year, and with most of the world's technical and medical innovations beginning with a scientific paper, there is an ever growing demand for efficient and effective ways to create and collaborate on scientific papers. This coming year looks set to be a transformational period for academic publishing – and for the science behind it.

Join us on the 16th January from 6pm

To kick off the New Year and this new chapter in scientific publishing, we're organising an Academia 2.0 event in the evening on 16 January at the British Library.

We'll have four 10 minute talks giving different perspectives on scientific publishing, and there will be a good mixture of people from the science, publishing and startup communities.

We’re also excited to be launching a major update at the event – a new service designed to make our writing, collaboration and publishing tools more accessible to scientists and technical writers from all disciplines and at all stages of their careers.

Update: Confirmed speakers include:

• Dr Bibiana Campos-Seijo, Editor of Chemistry World (RSC) and regular contributor to Wired Magazine.
• Linus Schumacher, Mathematical and Theoretical biologist at the University of Oxford Life Sciences Interface DTC.
• Dr Karen Rowlett, Managing Editor of F1000Research and previously at the Society for General Microbiology.
• Dr John Hammersley, Co-founder of writeLaTeX and former Head of Systems Research at Ultra PRT (makers of driverless taxis!).

Doors open at 6pm, and the talks will begin at 6:30pm. After the talks we'll have ongoing discussions and networking until 9pm. Places are limited, so if you're interested in attending please let us know and we’ll add you to the guest list.