London, New York, and Berlin -- 29th June 2021. Springer Nature has today announced the launch of its inclusive author name change policy (1), which will enable transgender authors and those authors at risk (2) to retroactively update their name on the version of record (VOR) and associated metadata in all Springer Nature journals, books and conference proceedings.

Trans authors often face a lengthy and very public process, often with associated personal and professional risk, when seeking to correct their publication record. By providing those authors with the tools and support to do this silently and safely, Springer Nature aims to redress these challenges for authors and to further drive forward the need to eliminate these systemic barriers within the academic community.

Speaking of the policy Ed Gerstner, Director Journals, Policy and Strategy commented:

"As publishers it is imperative that we, collectively, find ways to ensure our academic community feels safe and supported. Not only in the production and publication of their research, but also to ensure that they are properly accredited and recognised for their full body of academic research, which they have contributed to the development of science and society.

We are proud to play an active role in making steps towards addressing these challenges and implementing change, but more needs to be done. We remain committed to working with our communities to raise the bar and both support and celebrate diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) across our company and through our publications and other activities."

The policy seeks to make name changes:

• Comprehensive across all relevant search systems and across the version of records and associated metadata;
• Silent so that readers will not be aware that a correction to an author's name has been made, with authors given the option of the change being silent or flagged;
• Inclusive as to allow name changes for various reason ― principally to serve the needs of transgender scholars but also other reasons such as religious reasons;
• Cascaded without unnecessary burden on authors to update abstracting and indexing sites

As part of this policy, biographical information, including pronouns and author photographs, will be corrected as needed to reflect the change.

Springer Nature will be implementing this policy across all of its scholarly journals, magazines, conference proceedings and books. The policy forms part of the publishers' continued commitment to supporting DE&I and collaborating with its communities to ensure that this support enables and promotes a more equal and inclusive culture in academic research.

1. The policy will be included on the policy pages of each imprint site.
2. The policy is inclusive to allow name changes principally to serve the needs of transgender scholars but to also support those authors at risk for religious or domestic reasons where an author is vulnerable or in danger.

Note to Editors:

Springer Nature is a signatory to the Publishers Association's 10 point Inclusivity Action Plan and the Charta der Vielfalt (German Charter of Diversity) as well as being a Stonewall Diversity Champion and a member of the Valuable 500.