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
August 2024: AGU Publications releases guidelines for authors interested in writing and submitting manuscripts on DEIA related issues in the Earth and space sciences.
June 2024: We announced the upcoming launch of the AGU Publications DEIA Reviewer Board to support peer review of DEIA-related papers. Applications are accepted until 30 June 2024.
May 2024: Inclusion in Global Research: we updated our authorship policy to foster greater equity and transparency in global research collaborations and help to address the issue of parachute science. Read the announcement on our blog and the AGU Advances editorial with policy details and background.
April 2024: GeoHealth announced the launch of its Early Career Editorial Board. Learn more about the Board and our first cohort in this editorial: Introducing the Rising Stars of GeoHealth
February 2024: Community Science Exchange published A Living Statement of DEI and Ethics Expectations Within the Community Science Exchange
December 2023: Held a workshop at AGU23 on the intersection between Open Science and DEIA: Wide Open Publications: Co-creating equitable and inclusive science through open practices
November 2023: Published more articles and updated the call for papers for the 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!
October 2023: The AGU Pubs Style Guide has been updated adding a new reference format for citing oral teachings of Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers.
September 2023: Published guidelines for writing constructive and respectful reviews: The Dos and Don’ts of Peer Reviewing
September 2023: Reported on our activities to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
August 2023: Held a free peer-review training webinar Peer-Review Essentials: How to Write Exceptional and Respectful Reviews and made the recording and slides available to everyone
August 2023: Held a Mentoring365 Circle Publishing 101 – Writing and Submitting Your First Paper for 64 early career researchers, partnering them with AGU journal editors and staff
July 2023: AGU Publications continues its commitment to equitable open science by converting Water Resources Research to a fully open access journal in 2024, with robust funding support for publishing fees, including full waivers.
July 2023: JGR Biogeosciences published a new editorial: Update on Our Action Plan for Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity in Publishing at JGR: Biogeosciences
April 2023: Geohealth published a new special collection: Ecological Calendars and Anticipating the Anthropogenic Climate Crisis, a transdisciplinary collaboration of Indigenous knowledge and science
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.
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:
