EDI ongoing activities and updates

We believe in being transparent and accountable around our EDI commitment and missions and will regularly update this page with information and updates on our work towards achieving them.

Recruitment, retention, outreach

• As part of EvenUP we are part of the new EvenUP: Publishing For All initative which seeks to inspire the next generation of publishers through work with local secondary schools. 
• As part of University of Bristol policy, candidate applications are now completely anonymous and we have removed degrees as an essential requirement from job advertisements.
• We offered a 6-month internship via the Kickstart Scheme, which has now been completed.
• We advertise jobs with Creative Access, Babbasa, the Society of Young Publishers, Diverse Jobs Matter, Evenbreak and Pink Jobs.
• We have received a departmental recruitment data report from the University of Bristol so that we can monitor the results of our actions and set targets.
• Our staff took part in the Publishers Association's workforce diversity, inclusion and belonging survey in 2024.
• We took part in Creative Access/Publishers Association's inclusivity action plan consultation in October 2022.
• We have been selected to offer another internship through 10,000 Black Interns.
• We ran a Creative Industries Unlocked session for 16-year-olds from a range of education settings in Bristol, organised by the University of Bristol widening participation team in March 2023.
• We took part in the Creative Access/Publishers Association's inclusivity action plan consultation. An updated version of the plan will be published in early 2023.

Office culture, organisational policies and governance

• We regularly update our website EDI hub with information about our commitments, organisational ethos, accessibility, publishing and partnerships.
• Each team within the organisation has created an EDI action plan.
• In line with the University of Bristol Blended Working policy, we have established an inclusive flexible working policy which combines working in the office and working from home.
• We share info internally about our EDI targets, aims and actions and encourage participation and feedback, for example in the monthly team meetings and in line managers meetings. 
• Unconscious Bias training and Union information have been added to our staff induction pack.
• The BUP Anti-racist Book Club continues to run, most recently reading Hostile Environment by Maya Goodfellow.
• The whole team attended a neurodiversity awareness training session in October 23, a Trans inclusion session in November 23 and an unconscious bias session in January 2024.
• We marked Neurodiversity Celebration Week in March 2024 by sharing neurodiversity resources including books and podcasts and encouraging everyone to share their own favourite resources.
• We created a code of conduct for our staff and external colleagues to ensure everyone is acting with respect, integrity and understanding.

Publishing Programme

• We profile our history in publishing for EDI/marginalised voices/Global South (GS) on the EDI hub.
• We have set up benefits for authors from developing countries, including no Article Processing Charges (APC), deep discounts and free access – visible on our website.
• Transforming Society continues to publish articles and podcasts that reflect our EDI priorities and mission.
• We added an ‘accessibility’ section on book proposal guidelines to ensure both authors and audiences’ needs are considered.
• LGBTQ+ is now LGBTQIA+ in BUP style guide, on the website and in marketing. This is a guide for authors only – form used will be determined by context of research.
• We have employed a new trade commissioning editor whose remit includes EDI-related content and encouraging a wide-ranging author base including from disadvantaged communities.
• We continue to expand our commissioning and publishing in Gender Studies, Poverty and Inequality, Race and Ethnicity and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, for example with the development of the new Law monograph series, Diverse Voices.
• For our journals we have developed an equitable authorship statement which recommends that, when reporting primary research, at least one author (ideally the first author) should have a primary affiliation with an institution in the country in which the data were collected.
• We participated in a webinar organised by Zendy (our partners in the Middle East distributing ebooks to low-income individuals in the global south) on the topic of 'Supporting the publishing and discovery journey of young and emerging scholars in the Global South'.

Authors, reviewers and editorial boards

• Annual demographic survey sent to authors, editors and all publishing partners in 2023. We use the data to monitor progress against our targets.
• Our journals published a joint EDI statement, including the recruitment of a diverse and inclusive editorial board.
• We now record the preferred pronouns for authors as part of the contact record in our database.
• We added a new section to the marketing questionnaire and journals proposal that specifically asks for suggestions for BAME/GS reviewers and networks to contact for reviews and testimonials.
• Staff have received training from the University of Bristol library to use tools such as SciVal and Scopus in order to search for a more global network of reviewers.
• We have removed Article Processing Charges (APC), offer deep discounts and free access for authors from developing countries and highlight these benefits on the website.
• Authors are asked to inform us about any gender pronouns to be aware of at contract offer stage. This allows production to use the right language on imprint pages and can be used by all departments in interactions with authors. Our contracts have also been changed to they/them and now use gender-neutral pronouns.
• Our name change policy has been added to the Author Hub and relevant documents.

Customers and vendors

• Our full collection of books is now available on the Royal National Institute of Blind People Bookshare database and on Bookshare.org, an accessible online library for people with dyslexia, learning disabilities, visual impairments and other reading barriers.
• We have established a partnership with Author Aid to discuss possibilities for collaboration.
• We have signed up to the Accessible Books Consortium Charter.
• We partner with Research4Life to provide low-and middle-income countries with free or low-cost access to academic and professional peer-reviewed content online.
• Our accessibility statement achieved a silver-rated, 74% ASPIRE score in March 22.
• We have developed best practice guidance for alt-text for authors. 
• We use camel case hashtags eg #CamelCase. Camel case is the practice of writing phrases without spaces or punctuation, indicating the separation of words with a single capitalised letter. This makes the hashtags more legible, including for users of screen readers.
• We add captions to video content and use YouTube auto captions.
• Updates to online event intros to highlight closed captioning, indicating that users can turn on the option of having a text description of the audio for for hearing impaired audiences, or situations where audio can’t be played.
• We take EDI into consideration when selecting images for website and blogs.
• We are replacing the phrase 'non-native speaker' in our documentation and style guidelines as per CIEP guidance.
• We added a section on sensitive language to our Editorial and Production guidelines to help ensure authors use non-discriminatory language in their work.

Management and impact of our EDI policies

• Our EDI working group includes representatives from each functional team, including senior management, and meets monthly to share learning, best practice and ensure the progress of actions on the EDI implementation plan. 
• Our EDI implementation plan is updated monthly for the EDI Working Group meetings and referenced against our core commitments.
• We attend the University of Bristol Staff Inclusion Forum meetings.
• We joined the EvenUP initiative with other UK and Ireland UPs which includes a shared commitment to taking joint action and the ALPSP Inclusivity and Diversity Working Group.
• EDI is a core cross-cutting theme in the new Bristol University Press Business Plan 2022-27.
• In line with the University of Bristol, we have moved to using ‘equity’ rather than ‘equality’.
• We created a form for submitting new training links and resources and these are shared internally.
• A member of our team was on the DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging) panel at the Association of University Presses Annual Meeting in June 2023.
• A member of our team was on the 'Collaborating for EDI: Content, Accessibility, Outreach and Recruitment' panel at the Redux conference in May 2024.