Knowledge equity and diversity
Utrecht University Library promotes a fair and inclusive library and publishing landscape. This statement explains why and how we do this.
Statement of commitment to knowledge equity and diversity
Knowledge creation, collection, and dissemination are entangled with biases and systems of inequity. Unequal opportunities to finding and benefitting from knowledge impact academic work and the scientific community at large. We acknowledge our role, history, and limitations in dealing with these systems.
We would like to intensify our commitment to prioritizing knowledge equity and diversity when supporting Open Science and publishing activities. We commit to evaluating our tools, decisions, and investments in alignment with these principles.
Our commitment builds upon our interpretation of openness, that goes beyond access and includes diversity and inclusion. In addition, our commitment is in line with Utrecht University’s values and goals regarding collaboration, equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), societal impact, and translating knowledge to society.
What is knowledge equity and diversity?
Equity and diversity in publishing means there are equal chances for academic work to get funded, reviewed, published, indexed, seen and reused by anyone who can potentially benefit from it. This applies to all types of scholarly and scientific knowledge, publications, and authors. Because their language, origin, ethnicity, topic or format are irrelevant to the quality of work.
Which actions did we take so far?
- We commit to international statements such as DORA (Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment), including CoARA UU action plan.
- We actively participate in initiatives like the Knowledge Equity Network (KEN).
- We advise for individuals, teams, departments and faculties on how to choose and use equitable options. For example, through the Open Access Faculty Toolkit and the Publishing Strategy tool.
- We support and fund more equitable publishing models and infrastructure.
- We actively explore new or alternative and academic-led publishing routes and models (OA Diamond Journals Study, Publish-Review-Curate (PRC) Model).
- We raise awareness about equitability issues in publishing through presentations and workshops (Munin).
- We collaborate nationally and internationally on fostering knowledge equity and equitable publishing (DIAMAS, Publish, Review, Curates infrastructure proposal, Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information (BDORI), UKB werkgroep open access (WGOA).
- We move away from inequitable incentives and systems such as University Ranking and Web of Science.
Contact
Do you have questions about or ideas to promote equitable publishing? Please share them and help us ensure this commitment remains meaningful and effective. We welcome and promote discussions and reflections about the topic in the UU community and beyond.