Frontiers is pleased to announce a new policy to make it easier for authors to retrospectively change either their name, pronouns, or both. The policy has been created as part of Frontiers’ commitment to improving equity, diversity and inclusion in publishing and covers name changes made for any reason, including marital status, gender identity, or religion. 

Authors will be able to request a change to their name and/or pronouns by completing a simple form available on the Frontiers website. Once processed the request will be actioned across all publications and on the Frontiers publishing platform. Authors will also be able to opt for this update to be made silently, meaning that it will not be necessary to publish a correction when the change is implemented. 

Mirjam Eckert, Chief Publishing Officer at Frontiers said: ‘we are really delighted to be able to offer our authors a straightforward pathway to making retrospective name changes on publications and across our platform. By introducing this new policy, we want to ensure that all Frontiers authors receive correct recognition for their work and that the process to implement name changes is clear, convenient, and fair.’ 

Kanika Suri Mehra, Chief People Officer at Frontiers said: ‘we want diversity and inclusion to be at the core of everything we do at Frontiers. By introducing this new policy, we are working to support all members of our community and to be flexible and responsive to the needs of our authors. This policy also brings us into line with best practice in the industry. ‘ 

Both silent and non-silent updates will also be notified to PMC, PubMed, and CrossRef, however Frontiers is not able to guarantee updates will be made to 3rd party databases, which may have their own policies regarding such changes.  

How to request a name or pronoun change: 

To request a name or pronoun change, please contact research.integrity@frontiersin.org using the form template on this page. Alongside your former name, new name, email address and ORCID ID please include the reason for your name change, your role as an author editor or reviewer and your preference on whether the update is silent. 

Full details of all our policies, including the new name change policy can be found here.