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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Why Wiley? Why research Publishing?

diversity-equity-and-inclusion-why-wiley-why-research-publishing

Mia Ricci, Publisher, Wiley

February 22, 2021

We are finally having long overdue conversations about systemic bias. Like society as a whole, the research community is not immune to biases against people because of their race, gender, religion, disability, or any other aspects of identity.

Inclusive knowledge that reflects the world’s best thinking is our greatest hope for solving the problems we face. Diverse perspectives lead to more ideas, new avenues of discovery, and more solutions that we might never have seen if everyone involved with research thought the same way and experienced the world in the same way. But despite some progress, research isn’t as diverse or inclusive as it needs to be.

 

Is this underrepresentation due to academia's long history as a homogeneous space that actively excluded marginalized groups?

There’s more nuance to unpack from these statistics. Are researchers from marginalized identities equally represented across leadership positions, is grant funding rewarded at equitable rates?

Let’s talk about some of the challenges causing the slow progress:

  • We still haven’t overcome internalized stereotypes and unconscious biases that might deter people from joining the research community.
  • We have economic access issues and systemic barriers that limit who moves through higher education with research careers in mind.
  • Once active in the field, some researchers face even more bias, and at times even harassment and hostility either in remote field locations or in labs around the world

Each of these issues involves a web of stakeholders which is daunting in its complexity. Academia relies on an education pipeline, and researchers rely on funding from the government and other organizations. Without all these systems moving in the same direction, we’ll continue to see slow progress. There’s also of course, societal pressure and stereotypes. Representation matters and we have a long way to go: a report analyzing a decade’s worth of STEM characters in film, television, and streaming content in the US found that only 37.1% of are women, and only 27.9% are people of color.

Every stakeholder in the research ecosystem holds a role and a responsibility to move from conversation to action. And that includes the research publishing community. So where do we start?

An honest look inwards and acting with urgency

Within Wiley Research, our strategy includes an honest look into our own organization and taking necessary actions with the urgency each deserves. 

Just as diverse perspectives lead to better research, the same is true with publishers. 

Research publishing needs to fix its own diversity problem. A recent survey of scholarly publishing professionals found that the industry is 81% white, and the chances of becoming a leader are higher for white men with no advanced qualifications than for Black women with postgraduate degrees. And while the industry is 76% women, men are twice as likely as women to be in senior management roles.

 

Why is our industry lacking in diversity? Why is scholarly publishing so white? Twenty years ago, while I was working through my bachelor’s degree, I didn’t consider a career in STM publishing a viable option. Maybe because the industry rarely appeared in the job fairs at my city-funded university? Or because I lack the privilege of participating in unpaid internships, a common practice back then? Or because once I was an intern (paid, yay!), I could count on one hand the number of other women of color I saw working in my department?  

And now, the diversity issues persist. You don’t need to look any further than your average list of industry conference speakers and panels to see the lack of representation from underrepresented groups.

No industry can succeed without diversity. We can’t uncover or unlearn systemic biases and practices without a diverse colleague base. Those diverse experiences and opinions will make our industry better by exposing issues and finding new solutions to industry problems.

Wiley’s focus is on listening and learning to understand the issues closest to our community members. The passion of more than 7,000 colleagues has guided our strategy to create a more empowered, inclusive, and equitable culture reflecting the global diversity of our colleagues, partners, and customers.

There’s a lot to change, so we’re working across the board with as much urgency and care as possible. This includes:

  • Expanding employee resource groups to build community, celebrate culture, and advocate for our diverse communities.
  • Holding ourselves accountable through our dedicated diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) team and a diversity committee led by colleagues from all parts of Wiley.
  • Redesigning our practices to reduce bias in how we find, hire, and help colleagues grow their careers.
  • Providing all colleagues with the opportunity to participate in conversations and training on understanding bias and fostering inclusion.
  • Supporting other organizations working to advance diversity, equity, and social justice.

Publishing through an inclusive lens

If you’re thinking that fixing our hiring process, diversifying staff, and providing training is not enough, you’re right. As publishers, we have the opportunity, or better yet, the responsibility to create real DE&I change through everything that we do. 

This post is the beginning of a multi-part series where we will go into much greater detail on our efforts. To start with, we’re creating space for our authors and other leading researchers to explore the impact of inclusive research practices: are we coding bias into our AI systems? Are we conducting research with community engagement? Are we engaging Indigenous knowledge systems wherever we can? We’re also going to dig deeper into how DE&I must be embedded into our publishing practices. Whether it’s respectful data practices, or efforts to diversify our journal editorial boards and improve our editorial processes and policies, we aren’t waiting around. We recently updated our Author Name Change policy to promote a more inclusive publishing environment.

Better together

Like research as a whole, the research publishing ecosystem is also complex and involves multiple stakeholders (authors, institutions, societies, publishers, indexing services, ethical bodies, etc.). Solving the challenges around DE&I requires collaboration from all and a united front.

Diversity isn’t a ‘nice to have’, and it’s not a check box to mark off in reviewing a year’s worth of progress and objectives. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are absolutely central to the success of research and its dissemination. A lack of diversity will limit the potential of research. It will limit the potential of educating the world through science.

We are committed to sharing what we learn along the journey. We will do so in various ways, but one of the most important is joint efforts across our industry. 

 

As the world’s largest society publisher, and with extensive partnerships across the globe, we are working together across our networks to accelerate and extend our collective impact. We’re proud to be involved with the Joint Commitment for Action on Inclusion and Diversity in Publishing, working to set new inclusive cultural standards within scholarly publishing. We have also adopted the Coalition for Diversity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC) Joint Statement of Principles and are participating in their Working Groups.

The “work” (no doubt you have heard it referred to this way) here is a societal issue and a research publishing issue. It’s big, nuanced, complex, and it’s long overdue. Change can be difficult, which is why we need to work together and be transparent about where we are, what we’re doing, and where we hope to go. It won’t be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is. Let’s do it together.

 
 

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