Category: Insights

Holly Else & Jeffrey M. Perkel    |    February23, 2022

 

Efforts to chart and reduce bias in scholarly publishing will ask authors, reviewers and editors to disclose their race or ethnicity.

 

In the next year, researchers should expect to face a sensitive set of questions whenever they send their papers to journals, and when they review or edit manuscripts. More than 50 publishers representing over 15,000 journals globally are preparing to ask scientists about their race or ethnicity — as well as their gender — in an initiative that’s part of a growing effort to analyse researcher diversity around the world. Publishers say that this information, gathered and stored securely, will help to analyse who is represented in journals, and to identify whether there are biases in editing or review that sway which findings get published. Pilot testing suggests that many scientists support the idea, although not all.

The effort comes amid a push for a wider acknowledgement of racism and structural racism in science and publishing — and the need to gather more information about it. In any one country, such as the United States, ample data show that minority groups are under-represented in science, particularly at senior levels. But data on how such imbalances are reflected — or intensified — in research journals are scarce. Publishers haven’t systematically looked, in part because journals are international and there has been no measurement framework for race and ethnicity that made sense to researchers of many cultures.

 

>>Read the full article here.

Workplace Pride Foundation    |    February, 8 2022

Workplace Pride’s comprehensive new white paper challenges internationally-active businesses to have a greater impact in non-LGBT+ friendly locations where they operate. 

For years businesses have been coming to terms with the fact that their presence and activities around the world have an increasingly visible impact in the communities where they work. This comes with a responsibility to their own employees, as well as to the local legislative and cultural environment. This includes Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and other sexual minorities (LGBT+). In the wake of the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, not to mention the global pandemic, employers realize that the workplace narrative has changed. Attracting and retaining talent from all backgrounds, creating safe workplaces for all, and being a good corporate citizen toward communities and clients, means that being silent is no longer an option.

To explore the background and practical applications of the White Paper in more detail, Workplace Pride is hosting a webinar with the author, Dr. Felicity Daly on March 11th, 2022 at 13:00. The webinar will be open to the public.

Interested participants should write to events@workplacepride.org, and mention “Workplace Pride Corporate Advocacy for LGBT+ Rights Webinar Registration” in the subject field. A link to the webinar will be sent to you closer to the date of the event.

 

>>Read the full post here.

Holly Else & Jeffrey M. Perkel    |    February 23, 2022

 

Efforts to chart and reduce bias in scholarly publishing will ask authors, reviewers and editors to disclose their race or ethnicity.

 

In the next year, researchers should expect to face a sensitive set of questions whenever they send their papers to journals, and when they review or edit manuscripts. More than 50 publishers representing over 15,000 journals globally are preparing to ask scientists about their race or ethnicity — as well as their gender — in an initiative that’s part of a growing effort to analyse researcher diversity around the world. Publishers say that this information, gathered and stored securely, will help to analyse who is represented in journals, and to identify whether there are biases in editing or review that sway which findings get published. Pilot testing suggests that many scientists support the idea, although not all.

The effort comes amid a push for a wider acknowledgement of racism and structural racism in science and publishing — and the need to gather more information about it. In any one country, such as the United States, ample data show that minority groups are under-represented in science, particularly at senior levels. But data on how such imbalances are reflected — or intensified — in research journals are scarce. Publishers haven’t systematically looked, in part because journals are international and there has been no measurement framework for race and ethnicity that made sense to researchers of many cultures.

 

>>Read full article here.

>>Read the full article here.

Nature Sustainability   |   December 9, 2021

 

Conferences disseminate research, grow professional networks and train employees. Unfortunately, they also contribute to climate change and present barriers to achieving a socially sustainable work environment. Here, we analyse the recent impact of transforming in-person conferences into virtual conferences on improving diversity, equity and inclusion in science and engineering conferences. Factors including cost, gender, career stage and geographic location were evaluated. Virtual conferences demonstrated a clearly discernable and, in some cases, orders of magnitude improvement across nearly all metrics. On the basis of participant survey results, this improvement may be attributed to a combination of reduced financial and personal-life burdens. However, despite this clear impact, further development of virtual networking features and poster sessions is necessary to achieve widespread adoption and acceptance of this new format.

>>>Read full article here.

 

Jess Lamar Reece Holler   |   November 25, 2020

 

The Marion Voices Folklife + Oral History Program has worked, over the past three years, to develop & cultivate a critical model for bringing together economic justice + racial justice organizing in the community-based cultural work sectors. We call this model equity budgeting. True to its name, equity budgeting holds that the chief space of praxis & ethics for any community-based cultural work project is its budget.

We’ve been talking about, presenting on, &, most of all, practicing equity budgeting for years now. We keep getting asked what’s been written on equity budgeting: Where does it come from? Who says? Where can I read more so I can figure out if I want to do this; if y’all are even legit? Bullshit expectations that practices aren’t legitimate or time-tested models if they’re practiced in community & arise from social movements unless they’re written up in peer-reviewed, usually-paywalled (!!!) publications aside, here it is. We wrote it down. We wrote about equity budgeting. It’s here! It’s in words not practices! So attention, all you academic types: yippee, you can (and will now be expected to!) cite this. So, now that you’re reading words on a page: what’s this “equity budgeting” fuss all about? Where does it come from, why does it matter, what is it for, what world does it imagine, how can you learn more?

 

>>Read full article here.

Career News | July 21, 2021

Safety and equity concerns prompt some journals and scientific societies to hasten use of new names on transgender authors’ works.

In an effort to expand inclusivity for transgender researchers, some scientific publishers and societies worldwide have adopted policies that allow rapid and discreet author name changes to be made on digital editions of published works. These include research articles, conference papers, books and book chapters.

Some publishers are also extending the name-change option to anyone else who might seek it.

Among journal publishers that have adopted such policies are Springer Nature, which publishes Nature, Nature journals and the magazine Scientific American; Elsevier, which publishes The Lancet and Cell; Wiley, which publishes hundreds of journals; the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which publishes Science; and the American Chemical Society, which publishes the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The American Institute of Physics, which publishes a number of physics journals and the magazine Physics Today, is updating its formal policy.

>>>Read full article here.

Alice Meadows | July 19, 2021

This year’s Association of University Presses’ annual conference included a Collaboration Lab on Early Career Pay Equity and Inclusivity. Facilitators Rebecca (Becca) Bostock, Associate Editor and Subventions Coordinator at Ohio State University Press, and Dominique (Dom) J. Moore, Acquisitions Editor, at the University of Illinois Press presented the results of a survey on the topic that they carried out earlier this year. Their goal was “to start a conversation around early-career pay equity to expand current conversations around diversity and inclusivity in the AUPresses community.” In this interview, they share why they chose to focus on this issue, what they learned from the survey, and how they hope to continue the dialogue—and help effect real change.

Read full post here.

Laura Martin, Wiley | July 15, 2021

None of us have just one identity. The concept of intersectionality highlights how multiple, overlapping identities and identity markers—such as race, class, age, gender, sexuality, and religion—contribute to how marginalized groups experience discrimination. On June 15, 2021, the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC), in collaboration with SSP’s DE&I Committee, hosted a panel discussion on intersectionality. Speakers Axelle Ahanhanzo, Laura Martin, Andolyn Medina, and Derek Victor explored what intersectionality means, how it can shape our social and professional experiences, and what we can do to better support ourselves and our colleagues. A recording of the discussion is embedded at the end of this post.

Read full post here.

August 1, 2020 | Sarah Todd, Quartz

A survey from the Center for Talent Innovation sheds light on the problem.

A few years ago at a company picnic, I joined a handful of colleagues helping to haul boxes of sandwiches and soft drinks through the park. All of us had signed up for this manual labor a few days prior, back at the office. And all of us, it turned out, were women.

The gender imbalance of the picnic crew felt representative of a larger dynamic that I’d seen play out throughout my career. When a request for volunteers went out, women often seemed to be the ones who shuffled their schedules accordingly.

Out of sheer curiosity, I asked a couple of male co-workers why they hadn’t helped carry items for the picnic or responded to some other recent calls for volunteers. None of them had anything against the idea of helping in theory, they said. They’d just thought, I’m too busy.

Read full article here.