Authors have the option to provide a statement sharing information related to diversity and inclusion that is relevant to their paper. Learn about best practices for providing a Diversity and Inclusion Statement in your manuscript.
When an author incorporates a diversity and inclusion statement, it promotes author accountability and transparency for readers and normalizes inclusive practices around research conduct and manuscript preparation.
ACS Publications recognizes that authors are prioritizing DEIR in the research lifecycle, by incorporating these values into their publications and supports the authors’ inclusion of this information in manuscripts by providing best practices, as outlined below and within our Author Guidelines.
How to Provide a Diversity and Inclusion Statement
Authors have the option to provide a statement sharing information related to diversity and inclusion that is relevant to their paper. To do so, the corresponding author must provide the statement on behalf of all authors of the manuscript when they submit their manuscript to an ACS journal.
Statement Types and Criteria
These statements include but are not limited to analysis of citation diversity and acknowledgment of Indigenous land on which research was conducted. Statements expressing political beliefs are not permitted and may be removed by the journal office. All statements are subject to final review by the Editor.
- Citation Diversity Statement: The citation diversity statement should appear in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript. ACS recommends including the following: (1) the importance of citation diversity, (2) the proportion of citations by gender and race/ethnicity for the first and last authors, (3) the method used to determine those proportions and its limitations, and (4) steps taken to by the authors to improve citation diversity in the article. We recognize that one limitation of the current methods is that they cannot account for intersex, non-binary, and transgender people or Indigenous and mixed-race authors. (Adapted from BMES/Springer Guidelines)
- Land Acknowledgment Statement: The land acknowledgment statement should appear in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript. The statement should link to the institutions’ formal land acknowledgments on which the research took place, if possible. Further guidance for creating these statements can be found here.