The transforming power of I&D: how Elsevier is taking up the challenge

In the image above: Elsevier CEO Kumsal Bayazit gave the keynote speech at the international Gender Summit (GS21).

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from Kumsal Bayazit’s keynote speech at the Gender Summit GS21(opens in new tab/window), held virtually from Munich April 14-16, 2021.

In 2021, the international Gender Summits(opens in new tab/window) celebrated their 10^th anniversary(opens in new tab/window), showcasing their remarkable ability to bring together so many diverse members of our research community. Over the past decade, they have helped to define the debate and catalyze action to advance women in science and embed the sex and gender dimension in research.

Their success is testament to the work of people like Dr Elizabeth Pollitzer(opens in new tab/window), Prof Martina Schraudner(opens in new tab/window) and all the leaders who have collaborated on this journey around the world. One of my heroes, the late US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg(opens in new tab/window), articulated this ethos so beautifully:

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you. 

The Gender Summits reinforce the critical need for all of us to work together in building a more inclusive and transparent research ecosystem.

We have identified 3 key areas where we can make a meaningful contribution to advancing inclusion in research through our publishing, data and analytics:

1. Improving the representation and participation of women in the research ecosystem

To make progress here we need to be transparent, accountable and evidence-based.

At Elsevier, we are focused on the make-up of our own editorial boards and actively working to create better gender balance and diversity across our journals. This means editorial boards, reviewers, invited conference speakers, as well as authors, who are also funders' grantees, university faculty members and research trainees.

The Lancet(opens in new tab/window) journals editorial boards have already achieved a 50%-50% gender balance, and Cell Press(opens in new tab/window) met its pledge to achieve 30% women representation in 2020. This February, we launched a Gender Dashboard for 600 of our journals, which you can find on each of their websites, providing a clear overview of the number of self-reported female editors as well as the aspirational targets and representation of women across the field.

We will expand this transparency to all our journals by the end of this year(opens in new tab/window). We have also asked our editors to take additional aspects of diversity into account, such as geography, race and ethnicity and career stage when choosing new members.

Looking beyond our editorial boards, Elsevier has been committed to working with the research community to provide data-led insights that help inform actions for improving gender equity within the global research enterprise. Since 2015, we have published three comprehensive Gender Reports, the latest of which — The Researcher Journey through a Gender Lens(opens in new tab/window) — reviewed the state of play in 2020 across the EU and 15 countries globally by discipline. The findings showed that while the participation of women in research is increasing overall, inequality remains across geographies and subject areas in terms of representation, awarded grants and collaborations.

Our report highlighted Portugal’s leadership among European countries in terms of participation of women in science, particularly for early and mid-career researchers. To better understand what has driven this progress and to provide data-led insights, we will launch a dedicated report at the end of this month on The Portuguese Researcher through a Gender Lens. I hope this case study on Portugal will provide insights on policies, culture and actions that support sustainable gender balance.

We are also proud to contribute our analytics to the European Commission’s She Figures report(opens in new tab/window), which investigates progress towards gender equality in research and innovation in Europe. This includes developing new indicators to measure gender dimension in research content as well as career progression. With a new report being released later this year, the She Figures(opens in new tab/window) provides the main source of comparable statistics on the representation of women and men among PhDs, researchers and academic decision-makers.

2. Embedding the sex and gender dimension in research

All of us in the research community have a role to play in this progess. At Elsevier, we have embedded the SAGER guidelines(opens in new tab/window), developed by the European Association of Medical Editors, in our editorial guidelines. Looking ahead, we will focus on compliance with the guidelines in medicine and and expand this work to other disciplines, such as computer science.

As part of Elsevier’s contribution to the 5^th anniversary of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, we developed an analysis of the intersection of sex and gender in SDG areas of research, revealing a stark absence of sex and gender analysis.

As we gear up for the decade of action, we must clearly apply a gender perspective to ensure that the implementation and outcomes benefit everyone equally. I’m happy to report that The Lancet team is now working to add sex and gender into the 30 indicators already developed by The Lancet Countdown Study(opens in new tab/window) to monitor the impact of climate change on health, triggered by Elizabeth's questions.

Ultimately, our success in mainstreaming factoring sex and gender into research design will depend on the collaboration of all stakeholders in the research ecosystem.

Funders such as the European Commission Horizon 2020 program, the WHO, the NIH, the NSF, UKRI and many others have also made great strides in this area. The DFG in Germany has developed a special “checklist”(opens in new tab/window) for applicants planning research projects so they can highlight the relevance of sex, gender and diversity in their research. We are also collaborating on a project spearheaded by Prof Schiebinger and the Wellcome Trust to provide publicly funded agencies with a clear roadmap of best practices in integrating sex, gender and intersectional analysis into research design. Ultimately, our shared goal is to promote excellence in research, creativity in innovation and social equality.

3. Career progression of women researchers in academia and professional life

By working together to remove systemic obstacles to participation and actively supporting career progression, we can accelerate progress.

As I watched the documentary and listened to the experiences of the women on the panel, what struck me is how much of their time, energy and effort went into fighting for equality. Precious time and energy, which frankly some of them would have rather spent on their scientific discoveries, which they dearly loved, was spent trying to drive change. I want to recognize and thank all who have worked very hard to drive progress.

And much progress is being made. A third of all leading German technical universities now being led by women. In 2021, the DFG highlighted its commitment to talent retention(opens in new tab/window) and tackling the leaky pipeline among postdocs.

In addition, we must be aware of how interrelated many of these elements are: the participation of women on editorial boards, in convening panels, or serving as moderators and speakers at conferences positively impacts career progression through visibility and peer collaboration.

At Elsevier, our editorial boards are working to actively integrate more early career researchers into the pool of candidates for editorial board service. We also host around 50 scientific conferences per year. By engaging with the researcher community, we have been able to raise the proportion of women speakers at our conferences from 15% in 2016 to 40% today. Our commitment is, of course, to reach and sustain parity.

With the Elsevier Foundation, we also work on raising the visibility of and opportunities for women scientists in developing countries through our awards program with the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD). Over nearly a decade, we have celebrated 45 women scientists from across 20 low income countries to highlight their achievements, their contributions to SDG research and their incredible resilience in the face of adversity.

Finally, we are proud to be working closely with the new European Commission funded MindTheGEPs(opens in new tab/window) program. Working with universities and research centers in Italy, Spain, Ireland, Poland, Serbia, Sweden and the Netherlands, we aim to reduce gender imbalances in European research institutions and generate data to support the development of national and European policy for gender equality in research performing organizations. As an information analytics provider, we can help shape a data-driven approach with our longstanding contributions to mapping gender onto the research landscape.