They're here, but you probably aren't thinking of them.

It's a common theme that, when researchers are asked to recognize the best scientists and scientific work (through awards and editorial appointments), women are often initially overlooked. Elsewhere, some have singled out unconscious bias in assessing excellence as a key obstacle for women in STEM. Here at CrossTalk and Cell Press we've discussed this problem before, both within the scientific community and among the general public, but moving from identifying the problem to providing actionable strategies to address it is difficult.

Adding to the conversation, we spoke with Kate Hibbert, a Publisher for Elsevier. Kate has made it a strategic goal to combat gender bias in the journals she publishes. In this interview, Kate tells us about her approaches trying to address gender bias in publishing.

Nicole Neuman: First, can you tell us about what you do? What is the role of a Publisher in scientific journals?

Kate Hibbert: I look after a group of 12 journals across geochemistry and planetary science. It mainly involves working with the academics who work on our journals as editors and editorial board members. I'm responsible for making sure that the journals are a success and that everything is running smoothly with the peer review process. Part of that means that I need to make sure that we have the right people as editors, and I have to appoint new editors as and when they're needed. We also try to make sure that the journal is up to date with changes in the field or emerging topics in that area.

I get to spend some of my time out and about networking with researchers in the communities that our journals serve. I might be finding out about their experience with their most recent paper in our journal or trying to meet the editors of the future who are excelling in their field. We also spend some of our time talking to early-career researchers and explaining the peer review process and how they can give their paper the best chance of being accepted for publication in a journal.

NN: How did you get interested in the issue of gender balance for the journals you publish?

KH: Gender diversity in science was something I was already interested in before I became a publisher—before I joined Elsevier, I was a PhD student in earth sciences. My area isn't as bad as some for gender diversity (my undergrad class was ~50% female, for example), but it was all too easy to come across a situation where it seemed that women weren't getting a fair deal. Like the time I was at a major conference in my field and all of the prizes were given to men, and I was just so shocked that no one had noticed that was a problem before the prizes were awarded. It's something I was always conscious of, to the extent that, when I published a paper, I used only my initials instead of my first name because I didn't want to be disadvantaged as a female.

It's been wonderful to find myself in a position now where I can proactively do something about gender diversity in science. Scientific publications are such a key tool for communication, but they're also increasingly a big part of how scientists are assessed on their personal success. Everything from funding proposals to job applications can involve evaluating a researcher based on their publication record. This means that, when women are unfairly disadvantaged in the publishing process or the way their papers are cited, it can have significant impacts on their career.

NN: What problems have you been trying to investigate and fix in your journals?

KH: The first thing I looked at was the gender diversity of the editors and editorial boards. They're representatives for the journal, so it's important that anyone looking at the journal sees that it's serving all of the research community, male or female. It's also why we try to have a good geographic spread on our boards as well.

I wanted to see whether our editors and editorial boards seemed to be representative of this research area. Of course, that's tricky in itself to find out—in the USA and Europe, around 50% of undergraduates are women in earth sciences, but at full professor level, it's something like 15%. Data on the stages in between (postdoc, assistant professor) are even harder to find. We mainly work with researchers who are at the professor level, so I think 15% women is a minimum of where we should be at, and we'd really like to be doing even better than that.

That's not the case for some of the journals I look after, so I really wanted to work on improving that. Practically, this means that, whenever it's time to replace an editor or refresh an editorial board, I make sure that gender is one of the things we discuss when I'm talking to the editors about who we should be inviting into those positions. I've found that just mentioning it as something we should take into consideration really improves the number of female names put forward for the shortlist. Of course, I still get the odd complaint that 'it's hard to think of many,' but it just takes a little extra thought, and then they seem to remember that they know plenty of great women in the field! We want to find the best people to work with us on our journals regardless of their gender, so having a gender-balanced shortlist seems to be the obvious way to do that.

NN: How has that process gone—have you encountered any hurdles?

KH: The main hurdle so far is that the process is relatively slow because editors and board members tend to stay with the journal for a fairly long time, so there aren't always many positions open.

We've also had experiences where we've found some great women who we'd love to join a journal, but they've had to decline because they're already busy with other commitments. It's understandable, but it's always a shame.

In general I've been pleasantly surprised by the response I've had from our existing editors. Whether they're male or female, they already know that women in science face a lot of challenges and that we should seize an opportunity that we have to do something positive. I haven't had any negative responses to what we're doing.

NN: Now that you've initiated some changes, have you gotten a response from the community? If so, what has that response been?

KH: I've spoken to our existing editors about this a lot and had nothing but great responses. We've also been really lucky that we've been able to work more with supporting a group called the Earth Science Women's Network, a peer mentoring network for women in earth sciences. This has given me an opportunity to meet more women in this field, and the response from them has been great.

I was recently involved with a webinar about unconscious bias in academic publishing. We spoke about what unconscious bias is and how it can affect the peer review process for female authors. During the webinar, we had some really insightful questions, and the response I saw on social media was really positive.

NN: What about the response from broader Elsevier? What do they think about what you’re doing?

KH: What's great is that it not just me working on this. Colleagues in my team have also been looking at how they can improve the gender diversity of their editorial boards as well. Seeing my colleagues embracing this as something that we should be involved with has been very rewarding.

This year, I was given an award by senior management for the work I've been doing on gender diversity, so it was nice to get some recognition that Elsevier appreciates what I've been working on. It's also given me a chance to talk to even more people across the company and let them know that we have opportunities to be influential in this area.

It's not just my work, either. There are several things going on across Elsevier that focus on gender diversity. For example, we recently released a report on gender in the global research landscape that uses our Scopus database to look at the contribution that women are making to global research. The company has also looked inward to certify that it is a good employer for gender equality and recently obtained the first level of EDGE certification.

NN: What are the next big challenges you want to tackle regarding gender bias in publishing?

KH: The next thing I want to look into is how we can reduce unconscious bias in peer review. Several studies have suggested that unconscious bias can have a role in peer review assessment, which means that peer review isn't treating all authors equally.

One thing I will look at is whether double-blind peer review would help. This would mean that reviewers wouldn't be able to judge authors based on their identity. I also want to continue raising awareness of the role of this issue, so I'll be talking to lots of editors and reviewers about it to get their input on how we can tackle unconscious bias in peer review.