Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Accessibility in Scholarly Peer-Review

In this upcoming joint webinar, ALLEA (All European Academies), GYA (The Global Young Academy) and STM (International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers) will explore issues related to Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) in the scholarly peer review system. The peer review system currently does not accurately represent the research community as a whole: women, researchers from the Global South and less-established institutions, early career researchers, and non-native English speakers are all among those under-represented. In addition, researchers not affiliated with established high-status institutions often experience a disadvantage when their work is submitted for peer review. Together, these biases directly affect individuals’ career progression and are likely to impact the quality of research outputs and diversification of the research system in general.

Panel discussion

A moderated discussion with four distinguished panellists will address these challenges and ideas for new, vigorous approaches to improve IDEA in peer review.

The panel will be moderated by Jessica Polka, Executive Director ASAPbio. Panelists include:

• Michael Barber, Emeritus Professor, Flinders University Australia, and a steering group member of the International Science Council’s Future of Scientific Publishing project.
• Haseeb Irfanullah, Consultant and part-time visiting fellow at University of Liberal Arts in Bangladesh
• Pradeep Kumar, Personal Professor at University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, and a member of the GYA
• Nicola Nugent, Royal Society of Chemistry, Publishing Manager Quality and Ethics, and STM member

A first joint event, on the future of peer review, was held in November 2020; a summary of discussions can be found here.