Building Equity in the Scholarly Communications Infrastructure

Abstract

Scholarly publishing—the production of journals and books—is a large industry with many universities, scholarly societies, and nonprofit and for-profit publishers involved. The groups with the most money and influence in this system favor research initiatives and academics from the Global North (primarily North America and Europe). Their editorial boards, editors, publishers, peer reviewers (who decide who and what is published) and librarians (who decide what is purchased) are generally products of western higher education and historically-created systems that privilege research and researchers that share the same background. Scholarly publishing is also a majority white industry whose gatekeepers have often been white men.