Gender data, the future and bringing it back to the beginning
Elsevier is a scientific publisher with access to a lot of data. Together with Uppsala University, they lead the MINDtheGEPs communication and dissemination workstream. But what made MINDtheGEPs a good fit for a big publisher, what value did they bring to the project, and how do they see the future? Claudio Colaiacomo, Vice President of Academic Relations, shares his perspective.
As a publishing company, Elsevier not only has insights into what is published on the topic of gender and gender equality, but access to data about who publishes what across all fields. Interpreted from a gender perspective, this data can tell us about the gender balance between researchers in a country, or what happens to a paper written by a woman, or a woman and a man together. Which is more likely to result in patent, policy changes, or media attention? All of this data was available to inform MINDtheGEPs work, not least through the Elsevier Gender Report.
Elsevier joined MINDtheGEPs 5 years ago when they were actively examining their internal practices and whether they were in fact gender equal. During this period of self-examination and striving for gender equality, and as they were preparing the very first Gender Report, they encountered the MINDtheGEPs community of researchers who were already passionate about the topic of gender equality in research. This made the project a good fit for the publisher to start channelling their passion towards the outside world and the community.
“I think this network [MINDtheGEPs] has a huge possibility to continue on. Whether it’s MINDtheGEPs 2 or if it’s the same topic from another angle. There is a network. There’s definitely passion. There’s even friendship at this point. And there is, you know, academic competence that I think can definitely be taken to the next level,” says Claudio Colaiacomo, co-lead of MINDtheGEPs work package on communication and dissemination, and Vice President of Academic Relations at Elsevier.
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