José Causadias awarded $250K grant to advance equity in academic publishing

José Causadias, an associate professor in the School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University, has been awarded a $250,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation alongside co-investigator Christabel Cheung at the University of Maryland. The funding will support their study “Employing the Delphi method to develop guideposts that advance editorial equity and accountability.”

While research has increasingly highlighted disparities in academic publishing, there is still a lack of unified guidelines to drive equitable editorial practices. Causadias and Cheung aim to fill this gap by developing consensus-based standards that promote fairness, transparency and inclusivity in scholarly publishing.

To achieve this, they will use the Delphi method, a research technique that collects opinions from a group of experts through several rounds of discussion. This approach will allow them to gather diverse perspectives and build consensus on the best strategies for equitable editorial practices.

According to Causadias, “This grant by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will allow us to address a significant gap in the publication system: the lack of guiding principles and best practices for editing. Professional societies, such as the American Psychological Association, have developed guidelines for academic writing, reviewing research, and other aspects of the knowledge production process. However, there are currently no resources to my knowledge on how to edit equitably. Our goal is to change that.”

The guideposts developed from this project will be a valuable resource for editors and publishers committed to fostering equity in academic publishing. By encouraging collaboration and building shared understanding, the research aims to set a new benchmark for fairness and inclusivity in the field.