How can journals amplify diverse practices in their publishing? In this second interview with AIP Publishing editors, we hear from Prof. Lesley Cohen, Editor-in-Chief of Applied Physics Letters (APL) since 2019. Her tenure has provided a much-needed role model to women in the field. Lesley describes how journals can champion underrepresented groups through their content development strategies.
Championing underrepresented groups has been a journey of many years. Women are probably the major underrepresented group. Despite having more visibility and prevalence when compared to other underrepresented groups, they still find their funding, number of publications, profile, attention from the community, and opportunities to transition limited when compared to men. So, how can a publisher change this landscape? Role modelling is incredibly important. As a female editor-in-chief — one of only two at AIP Publishing at the time — I wanted to provide a platform for underrepresented groups, especially early career researchers.
It was clear that commissioning would be a major part of those efforts. We introduced ‘perspectives’ articles, where recognized academics would co-author with more junior members of their team — or where we could provide a voice to other underrepresented groups.
Diversifying APL’s editors was also important to me. When I started, there were two associate editors and one deputy editor who were women. Now, 40% of our deputy editors are women and 26% of the associate editors I’ve hired have been women. This has not been without its challenges, because suddenly everyone wants to hire successful or promising women academics. Hiring in China was impossible because promising women candidates are so highly sought after. The same is true for ethnic minority academics: Many are already so overcommitted.
We had a little more success with our editorial advisory board. We were very US-centric, and I’ve tried to broaden our geographic representation and hire in other, underrepresented parts of the world, such as India. But there is a lot of work to be done.
Another thing AIP Publishing encouraged me to do was launch more special topics. Academics can come together to define a special topic, then create an invitation list for specific authors, allowing us to increase geographic representation. By recommending potential guest editors in underrepresented countries, we provide them with a platform and also grow author submissions from that country.
We also created an early career researcher advisory board. Since we were starting this from scratch, we were able to create a board that’s closer to gender parity (40:60 as a ratio of women to men).
To summarize, publishers must make diversity and inclusion part of their core activities as institutions. AIP Publishing has women represented at senior management, and that should be celebrated. It provides us with role models. For individual journals, diversity brings differences of opinion, creativity, and representation. I would like AIPP publications to be the journals of choice for diverse communities. Underrepresented groups all have their own view that is different, and it is important to hear it.
Prof. Lesley Cohen
Editor-in-Chief, Applied Physics Letters