Key points

• Societies face increasing pressure to contain costs and retain revenues, which are threatened by open access mandates.
• Funders and other science publishing campaigns need to recognize the value of learned societies and work with them to sustain the production of quality knowledge.
• Self‐publishing via preprint servers may threaten the quality of academic research.
• Societies can reinforce their value proposition through a model of academic entrepreneurship, including research activities, media engagement, and consultancy.