EDRLab and PILEn: collaborating to support digital publishing

© Photo by PILEn, joint Thinkpub event at the Brussels Book Fair 2026

The digital transformation of the book industry presents both unprecedented opportunities and complex challenges. To meet these head-on, collaboration across borders and technical disciplines is a necessity.

EDRLab and PILEn join forces

The European Digital Reading Lab (EDRLab) and Partenariat Interprofessionnel du Livre et de l’Édition numérique (PILEn) are driven by a shared ambition to support stakeholders across the book supply chain as they navigate the constantly evolving digital landscape. The current context is demanding, characterised by a sustained need for research and development (R&D) and significant innovation costs, particularly for small publishing houses. This makes increased cooperation between public, inter-professional and technical bodies essential.

This is where the inter-professional sector plays a fundamental role. EDRLab, as a specialist in open technologies for digital publishing, and PILEn as the Inter-professional Partnership for Books and Digital Publishing, are pooling their efforts and resources to explore the future of books. We share the same commitment to ensure that the technical and economic imperatives of digital innovation strengthen editorial diversity — at the heart of our sector — rather than act as obstacles.

Our mission is to provide the book industry with the necessary tools, standards and support to embrace technology, optimise costs, and focus fully on their core function of creating and disseminating rich, diverse works.

Shared European vision

This collaboration demonstrates the synergy between our missions to support technological innovation and foster cross-sector coordination to serve a single goal: building an open, sustainable and inclusive European book ecosystem.

We hope that this initiative will mark the beginning of a series of similar actions guided by a spirit of sharing and collective interest for the benefit of book industry professionals and, by extension, tomorrow’s readers.