How can journals amplify diverse practices in their publishing? We spoke with two AIP Publishing editors about their experiences. In this first interview, Prof. Felix (Phil) Castellano shares his perspective as the inaugural editor-in-chief of Chemical Physics Reviews (CPR). Since launching the journal in 2020, Phil has championed diversity throughout the publication process, from its editors to its authors.
My philosophy for CPR goes back to the fact that, in academic science, we’re all teachers. It was my experience very early on that students appreciate seeing teachers who remind them of themselves or who at least emulate qualities of themselves. This includes gender, ethnicity, and a range of other factors. The same is true for journals. The world is diverse; there are good scientists — and incredible talent — everywhere.
As CPR’s inaugural editor-in-chief, I got to structure everything how I wanted from day one. We started with the premise that everything needs to be diverse: geographically diverse, ethnically diverse, and gender diverse. We’ve applied this philosophy to all our associate editors (or review editors), advisory boards, and authors.
This is a different approach compared to a journal that’s been around for 100 years or more. You’re not starting from a place of inequity. If you begin with diversity in mind, you can set the tone and make minor adjustments as you move forward. We always keep this philosophy in mind and are cognizant of our composition when we invite new review editors.
I’m of the mindset that more journals need to take this approach. I think it’s good for the scientific community that all scientists are appreciated for their work, not for how they identify themselves. At the end of the day, we still have a review process — but you can deliberately target everybody while not excluding anyone.
There are, of course, challenges. Geographically diversifying is accessible in many ways, but the number of people in academic roles in physics and physical chemistry is not as gender diverse as it probably should be. That said, times are changing.
One factor that helped CPR diversify our author base has been our deliberate commissioning strategy: We’ve published authors from all over the world, from every place you can think of, with every type of identity you can imagine. If you keep going with diversity in mind, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. People feel well-treated and like the experience, which keeps them coming back. They make recommendations to other people in their communities. Now, we get a lot of people sending in proposals to write review articles and offer original research articles.
We’ve also tried to open things up to younger authors to increase ethnic and gender diversity on our advisory board. You’ll be surprised how many talented associate professors are out there who aren’t already involved with other journals. My advice to all journals would be to look for associate professors worldwide. Younger people are the key to diversifying. They have to establish themselves, so giving them a significant role in a journal can be problematic — but for CPR, because it is primarily review articles, there is a manageable, finite number of papers to handle.
We’ve done everything we could to demonstrate to the community that we are being forthcoming about our mission and how we’re trying to accomplish it. Being inclusive from the beginning has really worked for CPR, and I know that a lot of people appreciate it.
Prof. Felix (Phil) Castellano
Editor-in-Chief, Chemical Physics Reviews