Pillars of Sustainable Publishing: Supporting Inclusion

There are many complex challenges facing societies today, and Springer Nature is committed to building a sustainable business that helps address them. This means not only using technology to open up research and accelerate progress toward the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but doing so in a way that is ethical, responsible, and centered on fairness and opportunity for all.

‘Supporting Inclusivity’ is the fourth in a series of blog posts to accompany the publication of Springer Natures’ Sustainable Business Report 2021. It highlights several initiatives from the past year designed to strengthen our inclusive culture and ensure our business reflects the diverse communities we work with.

At Springer Nature, we believe that diverse perspectives drive progress. An inclusive culture, where people can contribute fully regardless of their background, identity, or circumstance, is essential to building a sustainable organisation and accelerating solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. No one should feel excluded because of their race, gender, sexuality, disability, or any other personal characteristic. Exclusion harms individuals, limits innovation, and constrains the potential of research to reflect and benefit the global community. That is why we are committed to building an environment where everyone can thrive, starting with listening closely to our people and learning what needs to change.

In 2021 we held our first global Inclusion and Diversity survey to learn how our employees feel about inclusion within the company. A high participation rate (62%) is helping us to understand the experience of all our employees, and the results of the survey will be used to set future actions and new goals for race, ethnicity and international representation. 

The survey has also been an important part of helping us to understand the experience of those employees with disabilities. We are committed to becoming a Disability Confident Employer, and in 2021 we joined The Valuable 500, a global collective of 500 companies working for disability inclusion. We are also working to significantly increase user-experience research with participants with a disability, with a longer-term aim of 20% representation. This commitment requires us to tailor our digital products to meet the needs of all our users. Contributions from users with disabilities will not only give us a richer understanding of our products, but help teams to empathise and understand practical needs, and positively influence design and help to spark innovation.

We are also expanding inclusion through our learning and development programmes. Whether through live workshops or e‑learning, our aim is for all training to be intentionally inclusive, embedding inclusive design principles from the start, ensuring diverse representation in scenarios and examples, using sensitivity guidance when creating new content, and working with accessibility specialists to ensure materials are usable by everyone. Before joining a live workshop, participants are invited to share accessibility requirements, and trainers are supported with resources to ensure inclusive facilitation.

We have also been working hard to promote the contributions of those who have been underrepresented in certain areas. For example, the contribution made by Black innovators and leaders to the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) has not always been as widely recognized as it should have been. In 2021, Springer Nature’s Black Employee Network launched a speaker series that aimed at showcasing excellence for those entering the research publishing and STEM sectors. Speakers from partner organizations are interviewed by network organisers, with the talks including discussions about interviewees career paths, role models, mentorship and diversity.

Springer Nature is also aware of systemic barriers to inclusivity for our authors, and we are working hard to eliminate those barriers where possible. In 2021 we launched our author name change policy, that is designed to enable transgender authors and authors at risk to retrospectively correct the names and biographical details on their published works. The policy will be implemented across all our scholarly journals, magazines, conference proceedings and books, with authors provided with the tools and support to change their details silently and safely.

These initiatives represent only part of our ongoing commitment to building an inclusive culture and working with colleagues, partners, and communities to support fairer and more globally representative research and publishing. Our Inclusion and Diversity survey will now take place annually, enabling us to track our progress and continue strengthening inclusion across Springer Nature.

You can learn more about how Springer Nature is working hard to create a more inclusive environment, as well as our other pillars of sustainable publishing, in our 2021 Sustainable Business Report.