Study to Assess Workplace Experiences, Practices, and Opportunities in the Scholarly Publishing Industry

Starting on January 31st, you have an opportunity to help advance workplace equity, diversity, and inclusion in the global scholarly publishing industry. 

All you need to do is give 10-15 minutes of your time and take the Workplace Equity (WE) survey.  It is open to everyone who works in this sector at publishers, service providers, and the spectrum of related organizations, companies, and consultancies, and will remain open through March 14, 2018.  A report on the findings will be presented at the SSP’s 40th Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, on June 1, 2018. 

The more people who participate — across genders, ages, races, creeds, sexual orientations, disabilities, and geographies — the more accurate a reading WE will capture on the workplace experience in scholarly publishing, which has long been characterized by a majority female workforce, male-dominated leadership, and a striking lack of diversity.  The WE survey is a grassroots effort to capture global data on current workplace experiences, practices, and opportunities in our industry. Through the survey, WE seeks to determine how widely organizations in the industry already address workplace equity, diversity, and inclusion issues, whether these efforts are effective, and what can be done to drive change.

Building on previous studies (Meadows and Kane, Wheeler, Torrey and Colestock, and others) and dovetailing with upcoming projects, the survey was crowd-sourced and reviewed by over 30 industry leaders to ensure that the questions are oriented to a global audience, cover relevant areas, and do not contain inherent bias. 

SSP is one of several organizations (others include STM, NFAIS, and UN Women UK ) that has endorsed the survey and will assist in its promotion and distribution to members and followers.  Information and updates about the survey and the findings will be posted on www.workplaceequityproject.org, @WEsurvey, LinkedIn and Facebook, as well as through the endorsing organizations.

An independent nonprofit organization, the Workplace Equity Project employs research, communication, and advocacy to raise awareness, gather data, provide information, and promote solutions to encourage scholarly publishing organizations to embrace diversity and inclusiveness.

The work of volunteers is key to the success of the Workplace Equity Project possible.  WE is currently led by co-founders Susan Spilka (Strategic Communications Consultant & Knowledge Unlatched, formerly Wiley and CHORUS); Jeri Wachter (Publishing Consultant & Co-founder, William Andrew Publishing and Knovel), and Simone Taylor, Ph.D. (Publisher, formerly Wiley).  Jocelyn Koller and Alison O’Connell (Aries Systems Corp.) and Matt Zimmerman (Springer Publishing) have each made an enormous contribution to creating the WE survey and website.  More volunteers are needed as WE moves forward with the survey and activates its findings.  To get involved and/or for more information, please contact survey@workplaceequityproject.org.