Advances in Mechanical Engineering and the United Nations’ sustainable development goals

Academic journal publishing needs to do more to meet the United Nations’ (UN) sustainable development goals, and Advances in Mechanical Engineering is determined to try.

In 2015, the UN introduced an Agenda for Sustainable Development, based on the following areas: people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnership. This agenda was adopted by all UN member states, and a list of 17 sustainable development goals was announced in September 2015.

Recently, Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet, told the Academic Publishing in Europe conference that ‘[we need] to reinvent the idea of the scientific journal that needs to be more activist in its engagement with the challenges of society’. ¹ This was in reference to the UN’s 2015 agenda and the journal community’s responsibility to help meet the UN’s goals.

I became Editor of Advances in Mechanical Engineering in 2019, and I agree.

The goals are comprehensive, ranging from ending poverty and inequality to improving infrastructure and manufacturing. I agree that we, as academic publishers, should not just contribute to achieving these goals, but that we are partly responsible for achieving these goals. Through the dissemination of the latest research, and thus the driving of research in subjects fundamental to the future of the planet, SAGE Publishing and Advances in Mechanical Engineering will – as best we can – try to address the problems outlined by the UN’s development goals.

In this editorial, we outline some of the ways in which we will endeavour to – or what we are already doing to – take our share of that responsibility.

Open access

Advances in Mechanical Engineering is an open access (OA) journal, which means that its content is available to view by anybody. An advantage of OA lies in providing developing countries with access to research at the sharp end of intellectual and practical endeavour. As these countries are often those most in need, with respect to the UN’s development goals, it is significant that they partake of the research aimed at meeting these goals.

Furthermore, SAGE Publishing and Advances in Mechanical Engineering are committed to the growth of research in developing countries. Through partnerships with global initiatives, such as Research4Life, INASP (International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications) and eIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries), thousands of SAGE journals are not only freely available (or available at a reduced price) to developing countries, but in many cases the article processing charges associated with OA publishing are waived completely. Once again, it is important that the countries most affected by the concerns of the UN development goals contribute to the global efforts to meet them.

Beyond publishing processes: content

It is true that offering practical publishing means to developing countries is an important step to addressing global concerns, but perhaps the most significant role for a publisher or a journal lies in their editorial policies and approaches. The UN’s development goals are universal and difficult, and while publishers continue to focus on their own interests (revenue, Impact Factor, their ‘brand’), real progress – towards ending hunger and inequality, improving infrastructure and providing clean affordable energy to all – will suffer.

Poverty doesn’t care about Impact Factor, climate change doesn’t care about brands, and so real change can only happen when academic publishing lends its considerable influence (intellectual and practical) to those things that really matter.

To this end, Advances in Mechanical Engineering will be focusing its Special Collection portfolio on the challenges identified by the UN’s goals, the first few including Affordable and Clean Energy, Good Health and Wellbeing, and Sustainable Cities and Communities. Advances in Mechanical Engineering, with its broad scope and its acceptance of case-study-type papers, is determined to lead the charge, as it were, for engineering in this global movement.

Beyond published content: people

Beyond the content of our journal, we have a responsibility to reflect the diversity of our subject and the people who make it endlessly fascinating, life changing and rewarding. However, in keeping with the overall theme of this editorial, we are responsible for effecting change. The current gender composition of the Editorial Board of Advances in Mechanical Engineering is 15% female and 85% male. Given that the global average for engineering researchers is somewhere between 20% and 30% female, 15% is not enough.

By the end of 2020, Advances in Mechanical Engineering will aim to reflect the global figure of 30% female representation by appointing board members appropriately. Beyond that, we will aim for 50% female representation and for improved gender diversity of our Special Collection guest editors.

Working together

SAGE Publishing is uniquely positioned – as an independent eminent HSS publisher with significant titles in STM – to take the responsibility we have discussed to help meet the UN’s goals. As an unreconstructed scientist, I believe that science holds many of the answers but, to paraphrase Albert Einstein, science without humanities is lame, humanities without science is blind.

The UN’s goals need much more than journals who simply let the handle of research turn, as microscopically tertiary interests iteratively find some of the answers. We need collaboration and agreement across all disciplines and parties involved in research. What we have proposed in this editorial – responsible commissioning, diverse boards and so on – is a small step, of course, but it is a step in the right direction. To meet the real goals, we need to work together as one research community, directing one another towards those questions that most need answering while keeping alive the spirit of human curiosity.