#Black Lives Matter EDITORIAL #Black Lives Matter Communications Biology is committed to improving diversity in our pages, our reviewer pool, and our editorial board. We recognize both the overt and unconscious racism in the sciences and have tasked ourselves with using our platform to amplify Black voices and the voices of all biologists of color. W e, the editors of Com- munications Biology, are deeply saddened by the recent events in the U.S.: the killings of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man; Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was asleep in her own home; and countless others, by police officers. These events are of course only the tip of the iceberg and have sparked mass protests nationwide in demand of social reform and justice. The systemic and deeply rooted racism reflec- ted in this and too many other similar events is not confined to any border or culture or field. Change is not easy and doesn’t happen overnight; however, it feels that in the last few years, the political environment in many countries has moved every inch of forward change yards backwards, and amplified the problems that had previously sim- mered just below the surface. So how can we as a society—and as scientists— affect positive change? It all starts with us. Before pointing fingers at others, we must self-reflect. As scientists, we know intellectually that racism makes no sense. All humans share nearly identical DNA, and we know that most genetic variation is found within populations rather than between them1. Therefore, it follows that science should be accessible to all people, regardless of group identification. Unfortunately, the reality is that we still suffer from wide racial disparities in STEM. Just look around any academic department or research lab; how many Black scientists do you find? Despite some progress in the last 10 years, in 2017 Black Americans still accounted for only 5.6% of the work force in science and engi- neering, while representing 11.9% of the population in the U.S2. Our journal offices are based in big cities like New York City and London— cities that are often referred to as ‘melting pots’—where you would expect to have the highest levels of diversity. Still, even research institutes in these cities suffer from a dramatic under-representation of Black professionals in the sciences and in science publishing. This disparity doesn’t start at the professional level. It is shaped by inequities throughout life in terms of access to good schools and colleges, mentorship opportunities and support infrastructure. An example of this can be found in the UK, where institutional racism against Black students and employees on campuses is not seriously recognized or addressed, which pushes many of the students to seek alternatives in other countries or leave academia3. This raises the question: are we as pub- lishers doing enough to encourage equal opportunity in academia and in science research more broadly? Equal opportu- nity isn’t achieved by posting a job advert and including the one-liner “we encou- rage applications from minorities”. It is likewise not achieved by passively mana- ging manuscript submissions and inviting “We pledge to speak out against racism and reflect on actionable steps for a positive change in the life sciences.” https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-1062-6 OPEN COMMUNICATIONS BIOLOGY | (2020) 3:332 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-1062-6 | www.nature.com/commsbio 1 12 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 () :,; http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1038/s42003-020-1062-6&domain=pdf http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1038/s42003-020-1062-6&domain=pdf http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1038/s42003-020-1062-6&domain=pdf http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1038/s42003-020-1062-6&domain=pdf www.nature.com/commsbio www.nature.com/commsbio reviewers without making a conscious effort to improve diversity. So what can we do? At Communications Biology, we will seize on this opportunity to educate ourselves, prioritize efforts to reach Black scientists at all stages of their careers, and ensure that such efforts are part of a long- term continuous plan rather than a one- time reaction to a specific incident or to show that we are checking a box. Instead, we pledge to speak out against racism and reflect on actionable steps for a positive change in the life sciences. After careful thought, we share our commitments: ● We will work to recruit Black scientists to our editorial board. ● We will start a series to discuss the journey in science for Black researchers at any point in their career. This will be in the form of a Q&A series that sheds light on the scientific journey of Black and other minority researchers. ● We will aim for each of our in-house editors to visit at least one Historically Black College or University, or other research institute with a majority of students from underrepresented mino- rities, per year to talk to students about careers in science publishing, to pro- mote editor recruitment and to provide seminars on the publication process and publishing in high-impact journals for researchers. ● We will actively seek volunteers from underrepresented groups, including Black biologists, to review manuscripts, in order to enrich our reviewer pool and ensure it reflects the full commu- nity of biologists. To achieve this, we have added a question to capture this dimension of reviewer diversity to our volunteer reviewer spreadsheet. Please do suggest your colleagues and scientist friends. ● We will highlight scientists who are actively working towards the enrich- ment of opportunities for Black indivi- duals, or who are focusing their research on Black health and environ- mental disparities, through commis- sioned Comment and Perspective articles. ● We will strive to actively encourage and recruit Black editors to our in-house team and the teams of our sister journals. Please don’t hesitate to con- tact us about opportunities at Nature Research if this is something you may be interested in. Racism is not a political issue, but rather a human rights issue. Science and human rights go hand-in-hand. With this in mind, we at Communications Biology stand in solidarity with the Black community and with our fellow activists in the Black Lives Matter move- ment to not only denounce racism, but to actively commit to ensuring equal opportunity and achieving antiracism. As a single journal, we cannot solve the inequities caused by hundreds of years of systemic racism. But by working together, an all-inclusive future becomes possible. References 1. Witherspoon, D. J. et al. Genetic similarities within and between human populations. Genetics 176, 351–359 (2007). 2. Burke, A. Demographic Trends of the S&E Workforce. National Science Foundation https:// ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20198/demographic- trends-of-the-s-e-workforce (2019). 3. Weale, S. UK universities condemned for failure to tackle racism. The Guardian https://www. theguardian.com/education/2019/jul/05/uk- universities-condemned-for-failure-to-tackle- racism (2019). Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. © Springer Nature Limited 2020 EDITORIAL COMMUNICATIONS BIOLOGY | https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-1062-6 2 COMMUNICATIONS BIOLOGY | (2020) 3:332 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-1062-6 | www.nature.com/commsbio https://forms.gle/mEchFhCNkAK4Xqc79 https://forms.gle/mEchFhCNkAK4Xqc79 https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20198/demographic-trends-of-the-s-e-workforce https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20198/demographic-trends-of-the-s-e-workforce https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20198/demographic-trends-of-the-s-e-workforce https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jul/05/uk-universities-condemned-for-failure-to-tackle-racism https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jul/05/uk-universities-condemned-for-failure-to-tackle-racism https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jul/05/uk-universities-condemned-for-failure-to-tackle-racism https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jul/05/uk-universities-condemned-for-failure-to-tackle-racism http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ www.nature.com/commsbio #Black Lives Matter References