Strategies and a checklist for increasing diversity, equity and inclusion in your journal

Abstract

As scientists, we pride ourselves on revealing fundamental truths about the world around us. To ensure that we do that in an unbiased way, we need to ensure that we evaluate and communicate scientific findings objectively. Yet as human beings, we are prone to numerous cognitive biases that interfere with our objectivity. Recent years have brought renewed interest in ensuring that scientific research is conducted and evaluated equitably, especially in the light of widespread and chronic underrepresentation of women and racial, ethnic, and other historically underrepresented, underserved groups in science (Horn et al., 2023; Sandi & Carey, 2021; Smith et al., 2023). As a group of neuroscientists and representatives of the European Journal of Neuroscience (EJN) and its publisher (Wiley), here, we focus on one key step in the dissemination and communication of scientific findings: scholarly publishing. For the last of these, a set of six minimum standards has been launched to improve outcomes on inclusion and diversity throughout the publishing process. The Joint Commitment has also created a standardized schema of questions and response options for collecting self-reported data on gender, race and ethnicity. Separately, in December 2021, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) produced a Discussion Document on Diversity and Inclusivity (Committee on Publication Ethics, 2021) that describes the responsibilities of editors, editorial boards and reviewers and suggests recommendations for how they can tackle challenges relating to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) issues in the publishing process. There is no shortage of research drawing attention to the publishing disadvantage that authors from under-represented communities experience, exemplified in two recent studies. Smith et al. found that ‘notably worse review outcomes (for example, lower overall acceptance rates) for authors whose institutional affiliations were in Asia, for authors whose country's primary language is not English and in countries with relatively low Human Development Indices’ (Smith et al., 2023). Fox et al. found that ‘authors from higher income and/or English-speaking countries receive significant benefits … to being identified to reviewers during the peer review process and that anonymizing author-identities reduces this bias, making the peer review process more equitable’ (Fox et al., 2023). Alongside quantitative data relating to user demographic information and publishing outcomes, qualitative data in the form of user-generated feedback and ideas can be valuable in informing and shaping strategies. ALBA created a ‘Wishing Tree’ and invited attendees at the FENS 2022 conference to add leaves on which they wrote their wishes for how ALBA can help make the neuroscience community more diverse (Figure 1). The late US Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, famously said that ‘real change, enduring change, comes one step at a time’ (American Writers Museum Quotes, n.d.). We have suggested a number of ways in which DEI strategies can be implemented. They require careful consideration and can take time. But if we do not set out on the journey, we will not reach the destination. Michael Willis wrote the original draft, and reviewed and edited the manuscript. Megan Carey conceptualized and administered the project, and reviewed and edited the manuscript. John Foxe reviewed and edited the manuscript. Jackie Jones led the conceptualization of and administered the project, and reviewed and edited the manuscript. Nathan Smith and Vidita Vaidya reviewed and edited the manuscript. Yoland Smith handled the manuscript as senior editor and managed the peer review process. This is derived from the article, ‘Strategies for increasing diversity, equity and inclusion in your journal’ by Willis, Carey, Foxe et al. ❒ What opportunities can your society or publisher (if applicable) leverage to amplify and promote journal-led DEI initiatives? ❒ What reporting guidelines and other research reporting best practice can you encourage or mandate your authors to adhere to? ❒ Have you set DEI key performance indicators common to both your society or publisher and the journal? ❒ Have you created a strategy to narrow any gaps identified by the data in your DEI key performance indicators? ❒ Have you considered implementing a double-anonymised peer review process? ❒ Are you offering waivers or discounts on article publication charges for authors from low- and middle-income countries? ❒ Can you launch a ‘buddy’ or mentoring programme to encourage early career researchers to participate more in the peer review process? ❒ Have you introduced a format-free article submission process? ❒ Does your guidance for editors and reviewers direct them to write their feedback in an accessible and culturally-sensitive way? ❒ How can you diversify your editorial board to help diversify your reviewer pool? ❒ Are you promoting other article and journal metrics besides the journal Impact Factor? ❒ Do you require authors to include a DEI statement with their submitted article? ❒ Do you encourage authors to preprint their research? ❒ How are you raising awareness of implicit and explicit biases among your editors and reviewers? ❒ Have you introduced implicit bias training for your editors, editorial board and reviewers, and are you capturing their uptake and engagement with this training? ❒ What outcome do you wish to achieve? ❒ What DEI considerations have you included in your job description for new editors? ❒ What DEI-related questions will you ask in the interview? ❒ How frequently do you plan to refresh your editorial board? ❒ Which metrics will you include? ❒ How frequently will you report these metrics? ❒ To whom will you report these metrics? ❒ Which channels will you use? ❒ Have you noted areas for improvement as well as successes? ❒ What case studies or showcase role models can you include? ❒ Could you publish an editorial or policy article to accompany and expand on the report? The peer review history for this article is available at https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway/wos/peer-review/10.1111/ejn.16110.

Topics & Concepts