AIP Publishing (AIPP) is pleased to announce a new policy to support authors who change their names. Anyone who has published an article on Scitation can now request a name change, privately and for any reason, so that they will continue to receive proper credit for their work.
“People change their names to reflect their gender identities, marital statuses, and religious conversions. Given the pivotal role of publications in academic and research careers, authors need to be able modify their scholarly records. AIP Publishing is proud to join the ranks of leading publishers in offering a simple, discrete solution as a definitive step to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the physical sciences,” said Alix Vance, AIP Publishing CEO.
Upon receipt of an email from an author, AIPP will update names, repost articles, and redeliver updated metadata to third-party indexing services. Authors are not required to provide proof of a name change. Customer service, editorial, and production teams will exercise discretion in processing the requests and will not notify anyone else (including co-authors) about the change.
Jessica Hoy, Senior Journal Manager, explained that AIP Publishing is learning from a wide spectrum of publishing organizations to determine the most effective path towards more comprehensively updating name changes, notably in citations. AIP Publishing has joined the Framework for Action, a coalition formed by Royal Society for Chemistry, to collaboratively advance DEI in the research pipeline.
These important steps are part of the recent formalization of AIPP’s organizational accountability on DEI to combat structural inequalities and hasten transformation in its publishing and workplace cultures. The effort complements that of its parent organization, the American Institute of Physics, and partner societies; their shared objective is make the academic pipeline more welcoming, diverse, and inclusive of underrepresented voices and serve broader, more diverse global communities of working physical scientists. Another high priority is to collect race/ethnicity and gender data and assess the current demographic composition of AIPP’s author and editorial base and editorial boards, as well as those of our partner societies.
For more information:
- AIP Publishing’s DEI effort
- AIP’s diversity initiative
- Instructions and FAQs on how to submit an author name change request
About AIP Publishing
AIP Publishing is a wholly owned not-for-profit subsidiary of the American Institute of Physics (AIP). AIP Publishing’s mission is to support the charitable, scientific, and educational purposes of AIP through scholarly publishing activities in the fields of the physical and related sciences on its behalf and on behalf of our publishing partners to help them proactively advance their missions.