When researchers change their names, they lose claim to their earlier published work. Requesting that their names be updated on their previous work comes with many challenges — they’ve had to contact publishers one by one and go through the specific process requirements of each.
Now, a new partnership provides a streamlined way for researchers to change their names and claim published papers from all stages of their careers.
Announced July 28, the partnership includes Los Alamos National Laboratory, 16 other national laboratories, and 13 scientific publishers and journals. It enables the researchers’ institutions to initiate name change requests on their behalf, offering an official validation mechanism.
Any researchers wishing to change their published name for any reason can do so easily under the new agreement.
“The Laboratory is proud to support this important DE&I initiative to make it easier for all researchers to be recognized for the totality of their work,” said Laboratory Diversity Officer C.J. Bacino. “This partnership is truly a game changer for the scientific community and will help elevate the careers of many diverse individuals including transgender researchers and others who have changed their names for marital, religious, or other reasons.”
The initiative addresses the specific challenges that transgender researchers have faced as they’ve pursued changing their names on their previous work. The initiative helps these researchers claim ownership of their earlier published papers, allowing them to present their full body of their work under their lived names.
All U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories are pursuing this initiative in alignment with their respective diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, not as a result of any new federal policy.
Participating institutions
Publishing organizations and services
- American Chemical Society
- American Physical Society
- American Society for Microbiology
- arXiv
- Clarivate
- eLife
- Elsevier
- Hindawi
- Royal Society of Chemistry
- protocols.io
- Scopus
- Springer Nature
- Wiley
National laboratories
- Ames National Laboratory
- Argonne National Laboratory
- Brookhaven National Laboratory
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
- Idaho National Laboratory
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- National Energy Technology Laboratory
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
- Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
- Sandia National Laboratories
- Savannah River National Laboratory
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
- Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
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