GENEVA and AMSTERDAM, April 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Reinforces commitment to maximizing talent, innovation and becoming a lead technology employer in gender equity 

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information services, has earned the first level of EDGE certification, EDGE Assess. Elsevier is among the first information service and technology companies in the world to be certified globally. The certification highlights the priority Elsevier has placed on fostering a gender-balanced workplace by implementing EDGE across its eight core business centers in the US, UK, The Netherlands, Germany, France, India, China and Japan.

Economic Dividends for Gender Equality (EDGE) is the leading global standard for gender equality in the workplace. Certification requires a rigorous external assessment of five key areas: recruitment and promotion; leadership development; equal pay; flexible working; and company culture. EDGE Assess recognizes that Elsevier has made a public commitment to gender equality and has identified a concrete action plan to further its progress.

"At Elsevier, we encourage workplace diversity within our own company and work together with our partners to make these principles a reality in our community, whether it's through our Elsevier Foundation efforts or through the editorial boards of our journals," said Ron Mobed, CEO of Elsevier. "We strongly believe gender balance will lead to better performance. The EDGE certification is a recognition that we're on the right track. But we're not there yet. It encourages us to drive this effort even further in the years to come."

"We commend Elsevier for becoming EDGE Certified and defining impactful, integrated global actions. Elsevier has embedded gender parity into its core strategy and is among the first information solutions and technology companies to be EDGE certified," said Aniela Unguresan, Co-founder of the EDGE Certified Foundation.

Elsevier is one of the world's most diverse organizations, employing over 7,000 people in 24 countries around the globe. Elsevier has set meaningful goals to bolster the recruitment and development of diverse talent. At the end of 2015, women made up over 55% of the global workforce of Elsevier and held 32% of all leadership positions. Elsevier has a management team commitment to increase the percentage of women in senior leadership roles by end 2017.

The EDGE Certification is part of a larger, longstanding commitment to gender equity at Elsevier. Over the past decade, Elsevier has been an active supporter of women in science through the Elsevier Foundation New Scholars program providing $2.5 million in grants to support family friendly policies around career skills training, dual career issues, mentoring, childcare, professional visibility, recognition awards and benchmarking studies.

Following the launch of the new sustainability development goals, Elsevier also established a  "Framework for Advancing Gender within Publishing", a working group which examines key processes and principles and provides targeted interventions to ensure that Elsevier produces the most robust research possible in the most equitable and inclusive way. This includes journal guidance to authors reporting gender/sex in research; gender diversity at conferences and in editorial boards and developing reports such as the 2015 'Mapping Gender in the German Research Arena', which equips the research community with a strong evidence base for targeted gender interventions.

Read more on Elsevier Connect.

About EDGE Certification 

EDGE is the leading global assessment methodology and business certification standard for gender equality. EDGE Certification has been designed to help companies not only create an optimal workplace for women and men, but also benefit from it.

EDGE stands for Economic Dividends for Gender Equality and is distinguished by its rigor and focus on business impact. The methodology uses a business, rather than theoretical approach that incorporates benchmarking, metrics and accountability into the process. It assesses policies, practices and numbers across five different areas of analysis: equal pay for equal work, recruitment and promotion, leadership development training and mentoring, flexible working and company culture.

EDGE Certification has received the endorsement of business, government and academic leaders from around the world.

The EDGE assessment methodology was developed by the EDGE Certified Foundation and launched at the World Economic Forum in 2011. http://www.edge-cert.org, Twitter: @EDGE_CERT

About Elsevier 

Elsevier is a world-leading provider of information solutions that enhance the performance of science, health, and technology professionals, empowering them to make better decisions, deliver better care, and sometimes make groundbreaking discoveries that advance the boundaries of knowledge and human progress. Elsevier provides web-based, digital solutions - among them ScienceDirect, Scopus, Elsevier Research Intelligence and ClinicalKey - and publishes over 2,500 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and more than 33,000 book titles, including a number of iconic reference works. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a world-leading provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across industries. http://www.elsevier.com

Media contacts
Iris Kisjes
Senior Corporate Relations Manager
Elsevier
+31-20-485-3072
i.kisjes@elsevier.com

Lucy Jay-Kennedy  
Communications Director, EDGE Strategy
+41-41-530-11-49
lucy.jaykennedy@edge-strategy.com

SOURCE Elsevier