“This article is about author equity and waivers, not about workplace diversity and equity, which is the focus C4DISC’s efforts to date. But we believe concern over waiver programs and author equity aligns squarely with the stated values of C4DISC and with many of the stated diversity, equity, and inclusion values of its member organizations. We also believe it is insufficient for scholarly communication organizations to only pursue equity and diversity in certain aspects of their operations while ignoring it in others. Therefore, this is an article about inequity in scholarly communication. It is about the continued restriction of space for marginalized communities in scholarly communication. And it is about the growth of barriers and the exclusion of diverse perspectives in scholarly communication.

The authors will offer 3 perspectives on the issue of waiver programs and author equity: 1) Romy Beard, until recently, was the Licensing Programme Manager at Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL), where she worked with libraries and consortia from developing and transitioning economy countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa; 2) Sara Rouhi is the Director of Strategic Partnerships at PLOS, where she focuses on building non-APC, inclusive business models to make publishing more equitable; and 3) Curtis Brundy oversees collections and scholarly communications at the Iowa State University Library, which has committed to transitioning its subscription spending to support equitable OA. We will include recommendations for improving waiver programs as well as for adopting open models that have equity built in, making waivers unnecessary….”