DEIA at AGU Pubs
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) at AGU Publications
AGU Publications DEIA Statement
As an organization that serves a global community of Earth and space scientists, AGU is committed to promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA). Following AGU’s Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan, AGU Publications is implementing changes to foster a more equitable and inclusive scientific publishing environment. This includes proactively working to eliminate the influence of bias in peer review, improving diversity and inclusion within our editorial teams (editors, reviewers, authors) and our publishing processes and policies, and ensuring our publications content fairly and inclusively represents people and communities. We also plan to regularly track and publish our AGU Publications DEI progress.
All AGU members, editors, authors, reviewers, and publications officers and staff are expected to aspire and adhere to our Scientific Integrity and Professional Ethics Policy, which includes AGU’s Code of Conduct (Section III) and Ethical Guidelines for Publications of Scientific Research (Section VI).
Goals
Four overarching goals guiding our DEIA activities:
- Establish a clear position and commitment to advance DEIA through our publications
- Strengthen our editorial boards and reviewer pool through a diversity of perspectives
- Review our end-to-end process and policies to foster an inclusive, equitable, and accessible publishing environment
- Ensure our publications content fairly and inclusively represents people and communities
AGU Publications DEIA Sub-Committee
Charge
The committee is charged with accelerating efforts to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility within AGU publications content (the research that we publish), publishing processes (peer review and policies), and make up of editorial stakeholders (editorial boards, authors, reviewers). The Committee acts as the liaison between AGU publications and various internal AGU groups (Ethics and Equity Center, D&I Advisory Committee, Publications Committee) and the larger scientific publishing community to drive impact.
Members
- Paula Buchanan, Deputy Editor Community Science
- Amy East, Editor-in-Chief JGR Earth Surface
- Mia Ricci, Director of Publications Operations, AGU
- Arvind Singh, Editor JGR Oceans
- Maggie Xenopoulos, Editor-in-Chief JGR Biogeosciences and member of AGU Publications Committee
- Paige Wooden, Assistant Director Publications Strategy & Statistics, AGU
Data Transparency
AGU Publications reports on demographic data of its community as part of AGU’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Dashboard. We survey our authors, editors, and reviewers for voluntary and self-reported information only. Confidentiality is paramount and international privacy laws, as well as legal and ethical concerns, are followed.
The purpose of the DEI Dashboard is to:
- Allow AGU to review our progress, year over year
- Guide AGU’s DEI efforts and strategic goals toward creating a more inclusive scientific community
- Provide transparency to all on AGU’s DEI efforts
The data provided:
- Is securely stored separate from our manuscript submission and peer review system
- Will never be used for evaluations of journal submissions or invitations to review
- Will only be reported externally in aggregated and anonymized form
For more details on storage and access to data, please see AGU’s privacy policy.
AGU’s 2021 DEI Dashboard – released in August 2022.
AGU Publications is a signatory of the Joint Commitment for Action and Inclusion and Diversity in Publishing.
Latest Updates
April 2023: Expanded call to authors, reviewers, and editors to provide demographic data and published an Editors’ Vox to provide more transparency and increase participation
December 2022: Presented a learning session for AGU 2022 Fall Meeting attendees: Building a more equitable and inclusive scientific publishing environment, together
December 2022: New editorial published by the editors of JGR-Oceans: What's New at JGR-Oceans? Confronting Bias, Burn Out, and Big Data
December 2022: Launched a training program on implicit bias in the publication process for our 850+ editors and associate editors, starting with live workshops in December and additional on-demand training, resources, and workshops available in 2023 and beyond.
December 2022: Perspectives of Earth and Space Scientists announced changing its aims and scope, removing its by-invitation requirement and adding several new community-serving article formats, to encourage representation across the full spectrum of the diversity of Earth and space scientists.
November 2022: Added a Reviewer Tone Table in our Reviewer Instructions with specific examples to help reviewers write constructive and unbiased comments. See example on the Geophysical Research Letters submission and peer review site here.
October 2022: Webinar recordings and video resources are now available on the AGU Pubs website. Resources featured on this page vary in format (webinars, workshops, panel discussions, overviews), topic (publishing your journal article, peer review, open science, and books), and languages (English, Mandarin, and Spanish).
September 2022: Base publishing fees and excess page fees are now automatically discounted or waived in AGU’s hybrid (subscription journals) for authors based in Research4Life countries.
August 2022: Geophysical Research Letters announced transition to Fully Open Access and AGU expanded its APC waiver fund to ensure that funding is not a barrier to publishing. Learn more about APC funding options in AGU journals here.
August 2022: AGU released the 2021 DEI Annual Report and DEI Dashboard
June 2022: JGR Biogeosciences launched a Global Research Collaboration pilot, to help ensure that local researchers receive proper recognition and credit for their contributions to the research. The pilot is part of AGU Pubs’ ongoing work on exploring more inclusive publishing practices, particularly in addressing concerns of parachute science.
June 2022: Published AGU Journals Special Collection on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The living Special Collection presents editorials, commentaries, and research articles from across AGU's journals that shine a light on the need for and importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the earth and space sciences. Submissions are encouraged!
March 2022: Published AGU’s first bilingual book: Congo Basin Hydrology, Climate, and Biogeochemistry: A Foundation for the Future in English, and Hydrologie, climat et biogéochimie du bassin du Congo : une base pour l’avenir in French. Authors chose to write their chapter in French or English, and peer review and revision was done in the chosen language.
February 2022: Launched a Co-Reviewer program across all AGU journals. Reviewers are now encouraged to invite and recognize a colleague (e.g. graduate student, postdoc, or other early career researcher) to co-review submissions. The functionality is embedded within our peer review system and co-reviewers are acknowledged in the journal’s annual thank you to reviewers editorial.
Collective Action
We encourage ideas on how we can improve our publications to be more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible. Send your feedback to [email protected] and include “DEIA” in the subject line.
AGU Publications is partnering with other organizations to drive collective impact on DEIA in scholarly publishing :
