We are pleased to announce that SAGE has won the IPG’s Alison Morrison Diversity Award, which recognises efforts to make publishing a more diverse and inclusive industry. The award reflects the hard work, energy, passion, and commitment demonstrated across the business to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in our publishing and in our organisation.  We would particularly like to thank those at SAGE from underrepresented backgrounds who have paved the way for this work. We acknowledge that, for those most impacted by inequality, it has taken a great amount of personal energy to help us learn and progress. Whilst we take this as a moment of encouragement to continue our work in this area, we also know there is much more for us to do.

The IPG judges commented: SAGE Publishing’s journals and books have long championed under-represented groups and challenged inequalities, and it stepped up its own work with a new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Taskforce in 2020. SAGE is also a leader on accessibility, striving to open up content to more people. Judges said: “SAGE has been working hard on this for a long time, and it runs right through the structure and philosophy of the business.”

Of course, our work on DEI is still very much in progress. We know we still have a long way to go to create a truly equitable and inclusive culture, and to ensure our publishing fully represents the rich diversity of voices and perspectives that exists across the global academic world.  We are proud of what we have achieved so far, and we recognise our employees, who have played a huge role in galvanising these efforts. We also thank our authors, journal editors, society partners and customers who are joining us on this journey.  Increasing diversity, equity and inclusion across our business and the publishing industry more generally is the right thing to do and we are passionate about continuing to improve. We are looking forward to continuing this work together.

Because we understand this is not something we can do alone, we have several projects and partnerships that highlight the importance of collaboration in achieving these goals. On Social Science Space, we have compiled a list of impactful anti-racist social science research from a variety of publishers. The SAGE content is free to access, and we invite other publishers to increase the accessibility of content that helps us to better understand and tackle discrimination. Another example of this can be found on our structural racism and police violence microsite, where we have collated a list of relevant research. We would also invite others to join us in supporting organisations such as Leading Routes, which supports Black students and researchers through their higher education journey.

Caroline Porter

Executive Publisher

SAGE Publishing