Joint Commitment for action on inclusion and diversity in publishing: new steering committee
A new Joint Commitment steering committee is our next step in working together to accelerate research culture change – pooling resources to achieve higher standards of inclusion and diversity within scholarly publishing.
Three years ago we brought together 56 publishing organisations to set a new standard to ensure a more inclusive and diverse culture within scholarly publishing.
The organisations involved pledge to pool their resources and take action, promising to:
1. Understand our research community, by collecting diversity data
2. Reflect the diversity of our community, by setting representation targets for authors, reviewers, and editorial decision-makers
3. Share success to achieve impact, by sharing resources, policies, measurements, language and standards
In October 2022, we held a workshop to co-create a new steering committee for the Joint Commitment initiative, and the first meeting of the committee was held in April 2023.
The committee is made up of eight members – five of whom are sub group chairs from the Joint Commitment, and three were open positions for which individuals nominated themselves. Inaugural committee members will hold a two or three year term.
The committee members represent a range of organisations, all of which have signed the Joint Commitment, with the RSC holding a permanent position on the committee as a founding member and convening organisation.
Nicola Nugent, Publishing Manager, Quality and Ethics at the Royal Society of Chemistry, and Chair of the new committee, says: "The steering committee is the next step in our continued commitment to improving inclusion and diversity in scholarly publishing. The committee members are all very engaged and we're looking forward to working together to continue to drive forward progress, and ensure that the Joint Commitment initiative continues to deliver on its commitments."
The inaugural committee is currently drafting terms of reference based on feedback from the workshop. Going forward, the steering committee will be responsible for setting future direction and objectives of the joint commitment.
Members of the committee
Nicola Nugent, Royal Society of Chemistry (chair)
Holly Falk-Krzesinski, Elsevier (co-chair)
Phil Hurst, Royal Society
Danielle Ormshaw, Emerald
Cecilia Marshall, Frontiers
Shan Mukhtar, John Wiley & Sons
Vicky Gardner, Taylor & Francis (secretary)
Gordon MacPherson, IEEE