2024 FASEB Publications Transparency Report
As part of FASEB's organization-wide commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, later with Accessibility added (DEAI), the FASEB Publications Committee developed a strategic plan in 2022 with a commitment to instill DEAI culture in its publications. Starting in 2022 and inclusive through August of 2024, FASEB Publications took key practical steps in support of that commitment (Figure 1).
2022-2024 FASEB Publications Key Steps in Support of DEAI
2022 | Signed on to support C4DISC, to join the Society Publishers Coalition, and to participate in the Joint Committee for Action on Inclusion and Diversity in Publishing Added DEAI as a required measure in the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) search process, documentation, and expectations for new EICs Included geographic diversity of submissions, acceptances, and editorial team in the dashboard report to the Publications Committee twice a year Encouraged EICs to initiate significant changes in geographic diversity to more accurately represent the community served Adopted the Wiley Inclusive Name Change policy Publications staff participated in a FASEB-wide 18-month DEAI training program Developed and implemented a publication fee waivers policy |
2023 | Introduced optional self-reporting of gender, race, and ethnicity identity by users of the journals' peer review systems (March) Participated as a co-author in the Society Publishers' Coalition Recommendations for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Initiatives for Society Publishers Celebrated Women's History month with special highlights of editorial team members Publications Committee established minimum geographic diversity goals for editorial teams as compared to the author community and communicated those to the EIC Introduced and sponsored The FASEB Journal Early Career Researcher (ECR) Award given to participating ECRs at 10 Science Research Conferences each year with a note to the judging committee that encourages consideration of DEAI FASEB Publications reallocated our journal waivers to accommodate requests that are tied to and improve DEAI in the journal |
2024 | Established the first ECR editorial board with 118 members and integrated those board members into the peer review process, supporting them with publications related training and additional support for their career development Expanded the editorial board with intent to increase geographic diversity and gender diversity Introduced new requirements into letters of agreements with all editorial team members for training on identifying and interrupting unconscious bias and including a commitment by editorial team members to support the federation and Publications goals for DEAI |
Figure 1. Steps taken from 2022 through August 2024 to achieve strategic plan goals that were developed by the FASEB Publications Committee towards a commitment to drive a more diverse, equitable, accessible, and inclusive (DEAI) culture in its publications.
Publication Fees
FASEB developed and implemented a publication fee waivers policy in late 2022 to provide additional assistance to authors who could not afford publication fees and were not covered under Wiley's transformative agreements or their waivers and discounts policies. A similar strategy was used in terms of providing either a full waiver or a discount to authors in Research4Life countries and extended this to authors in countries not included in Research4Life by defined by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development as low and middle-income. In 2024, FASEB extended publication fee discounts and waivers to early career researchers who requested assistance. A total of 54 page-charge waivers have been applied for The FASEB Journal authors, and 20 article publication-charge waivers have been applied for FASEB BioAdvances authors since 2022.
Measuring Diversity
Self-reported gender, race, and ethnicity diversity were measured using the recommended practices (Figure 1) with the intention to report aggregate data in 2024. Our objectives were to take the initial responses and establish a baseline from which to assess, take strategic actions, and measure the outcomes of those actions. Unfortunately, uptake was too low to report aggregated results and retain the anonymity of individuals. As of the end of May 2024, response rates were: 34% among corresponding authors, 35% among reviewers with completed reviews, 44% among editors, and 10% among editorial board members. Today, we can report on FASEB Publications' progress on geographic distribution and career stage, as this information is more readily available.
Geographic Diversity
The Publications Committee noted that the geographic location of editors and editorial board members was significantly US-centric, and specifically located in the northeastern US. Recognizing the distribution of submitting and publishing authors spans the broader globe (Figure 2), the Committee established a first goal to grow the editorial team and geographically align it more closely with that of the author base. Geographic distribution of both journals' editorial boards, which includes the editor teams, at the end of years 2022, 2023, and at the end of August 2024, as gathered from the submission and peer review system are shown below (Figure 3). In Q1 and Q2 of 2024, editorial boards of both journals were refreshed.
We are pleased to have made progress towards wider global representation of editorial teams, as shown in 2024 (40% outside the US compared to 26% in 2023 and 21% in 2022), but recognize even more change is needed and are committed to continually growing our geographic distribution to better represent the community of authors and readers we serve.
Published Corresponding Author Geographic Distribution (2022-2024) Top Ten Countries by Year of Publication
Figure 2. Geographic locations of The FASEB Journal and FASEB BioAdvances corresponding authors who published in 2022, 2023, and through August 2024. The number of authors in each location is shown in the corresponding pie chart. The top ten countries are shown on the right of each pie chart. Data from Wiley Insights.
Editorial Team Geographic Distribution (2022-2024)
Figure 3. Geographic locations of The FASEB Journal and FASEB BioAdvances editorial team members in December 2022, December 2023, and August 2024. Countries are shown on the right. The number of members in each location is shown in the corresponding pie chart. Data were collected from the journals' eJournalPress submission and peer review systems.
Career Stage Diversity
Similarly, in 2023 the Publication Committee recognized that the editorial teams lacked early career representation. Incoming EIC Loren Wold proposed creating a large and diverse ECR Editorial Board to give ECRs a seat at the table, a voice in how the journal is developed and the content is publishes. In February 2024, a 118-member ECR board with members from around the globe was added to the journals (Figure 4). In the 7 months since launching this new board, the FASEB Publications Staff and EIC have engaged in conversations and training of the ECR board members on topics including peer review, ethics and research integrity, and publication bias, as well as topics of interest to ECRs including strategies on how to develop a new research collaboration. The ECR members are actively participating in the peer review process for articles submitted to the journal alongside an established Editorial Board member and external peer reviewers with content expertise, and we are grateful for their engagement, enthusiasm, and ideas.
Editorial Team Career Stage Distribution (2022-2024)
Figure 4. Career stage of The FASEB Journal and FASEB BioAdvances editorial team members in December 2022, December 2023, and August 2024. Percentages of non-ECR and ECR are shown in pie charts. ECR = early career researcher.
Content Accessibility
Content accessibility on FASEB websites is managed using the accessiBe widget. During 2022-2024, FASEB's partner publisher Wiley released a corporate training program for their staff that focused on awareness and born accessible processes. Wiley development teams improved accessibility of content on Wiley Online Library, the platform where FASEB journals content resides and is accessed, in accordance with Project a11y checklists, which are based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, an international standard for web content accessibility. Wiley teams are currently expanding these efforts to include other aspects of submission to publication workflows and to establish content requirements.
Looking Ahead
FASEB Publications recognize that there are many barriers to achieving true DEAI in the community and with publications in our space. We plan to continue to try to improve our voluntary collection of information about authors, reviewers, editors, board members, and staff to support our ultimate goals of understanding and finding ways to reduce barriers. During 2025, we will be rephrasing the questions to align with the voluntary self-identification survey of active FASEB volunteers that was developed by FASEB's DEAI committee, who also recently release a valuable tool, a DEAI Glossary. These changes to our optional questions will include adding a new category for career stage and rephrasing some of the questions and answers. We also intend to continue to establish broad measurable goals, use tools to help inform actions, and to research, identify, and remove barriers in publishing. We also recognize that this effort is a journey that takes continuous commitment. Given our location and composition, we also recognize that FASEB Publications comes at this topic with a US-centric viewpoint, which can be limiting. We are committed to remaining open to new ways to create and foster a truly inclusive and welcoming community for all authors and readers.