A summary of recent COPE activities in the area of diversity and equity, followed by three talks giving great insights, guidance and practical advice on collecting diversity data from publishing activity, creating diverse and representative editorial boards, and managing allegations of discriminatory behaviour.
Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are integral to publication ethics. Many journals are now seeking to make improvements in this area and to play a role in overcoming systemic barriers that face scholars from historically marginalised groups. This webinar is intended to give participants an opportunity to learn about tangible actions to improve diversity and inclusion, and to explore how these actions might be implemented. This is one of nine sessions as part of the COPE Seminar 2021.
DEI activities at COPE
The seminar was moderated by Caroline Porter (COPE Trustee, Executive Publisher at SAGE Publishing), who opened the event with a summary of recent COPE activities in the area of diversity and equity, including the author name change working group, diversifying editorial boards document, the webinar in May 2021, the peer review diversity survey, conducted as part of Peer Review Week 2021, and previewed the forum discussion in October.
Diversity data collection
Holly J Falk-Krzensinski, Vice President of Research Intelligence at Elsevier, spoke about collecting diversity data on gender, race and ethnicity through editorial management systems, along with background information into Elsevier’s large scale reports, particularly the 2020 Global Gender Report. Holly highlighted the goal of the projects to provide journal editors with information to help them achieve their goals of understanding and better representing their. Holly compared differences between gender and ethnicity in the difficulties, sensitivities and processes around collecting data, including details of follow-up questionnaires to the primary data collection.
Creating diverse and representative editorial boards
James Kigera, Editor-in-Chief, Annals of African Surgery followed, with guidance and insights on creating diverse and representative editorial boards, including ideas on why diversity is important, considering representation of journal scope, ideas around fairness, efforts to reduce unconscious biases, training and personal development.
Managing allegations of discriminatory behaviour
Randy Townsend, Director of Publications at the American Geophysical Union began his session with a philosophical consideration of the context of our desire to achieve sincerely equitable systems, considering humility, honesty, authenticity and credibility. Randy then spoke on the global growth of the American Geophysical Union, as the context for enhancing understanding of the ethical obligations of journal editors. He described some standard workflows to help reduce biases, and frameworks for managing allegations of discriminatory behaviour, all of which help individuals take more responsibility in ensuring the global audience is treated fairly and equally.
The questions and answers, at the end of the webinar, tackled several excellent questions which developed the themes of the session. These included: nuanced issues around nationality defining ethnicity, where a country label may be insufficient at adequately providing true ethnicity; the influence of open peer review practices in ensuring transparency around DEI measures; how to engage external editors in helping deal with issues around misconduct; and developing diverse editorial boards without detailed demographic data.
Useful links
- Elsevier gender reports
- The researcher journey through a gender lens Elsevier gender report 2020
- Chemistry for everyone through inclusion and accessibility: Royal Society of Chemistry
- Scientific integrity and professional ethics American Geophysical Union
- Publication appeals workflow American Geophysical Union
Related COPE resources
- Diversity and inclusivity discussion document
- Diversifying editorial boards, article, 2021
- Diversity, equity and inclusion webinar, 2021
- Author name changes article, 2021
- A vision for a more trans-inclusive publishing world guest article, 2021
- Bias in peer review, COPE Forum, 2021
About this resource
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