Academic publishers have a unique opportunity to work collaboratively in order to accelerate actions and advocate for the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with potential to develop industry standards, key projects, new collaborations and other initiatives. As signatory to the SDG Publishers Compact, STM is positioned as a perfect convener for such activity and can ensure there is no violation of competition laws or discussion over sensitive areas related to business activities.
To accomplish these goals, STM established the SDGs Academic Publishers Forum in 2022. Its aim is to provide tools to the broad STM membership to ensure that as an industry, science, research and education accelerates the progress needed to achieve the SDGs by the deadline of 2030.
Our Focus
There are two broad areas in which publishers can address the SDGs,
- How we publish, how we work with suppliers, how we set up workflows and processes in a sustainable way; and
- What we publish, what content carries the information needed by different audiences and has the potential to deliver real-life impact.
Whilst the first area is essential and our members are striving to operate in line with the highest standards of corporate social responsibility, the Forum decided to focus its activity on the latter, as curating and disseminating professional content is the area where publishers can reach the highest impact and make the difference.
