Emerald joins the C-19 Business Pledge

We share how we’re striving to get research & resources into the hands of those who need it most.

“The answers to the coronavirus crisis will come from the incredible perseverance, dedication and resilience of people around the world working together and making informed decisions, based on evidence that they can count on. As a global learning business we want to play our part in helping to share the vital research and learning tools that will make those choices easier and quicker for everyone involved. By joining the pledge we are giving our whole hearted support to making research freely available and supporting our communities worldwide in coming together to tackle this dreadful virus, because the more we work together, and share our collective knowledge, the more we can beat this challenge and make a real impact in saving lives and rebuilding communities.” - Richard Bevan, Emerald Group CEO.

For our customers

We want to make vital research freely and openly available, ensuring the best brains across the world have access to what they need, when they need it. Finding reliable, trusted research and sharing it across countries can sometimes be challenging, so we have made all our research on COVID-19, the management of epidemics and pandemics, and supply chain management free for anyone to access wherever they are in the world (including full text and data mining rights to PubMed Central and the World Health Organisation repository). And by partnering with ProQuest we can give unlimited access to even greater information sources, including their EBook Central holdings.

We also recognise that now more the ever it’s important to discover new research related to the outbreak and similar healthcare emergencies, so we have launched an Open Access Publishing Fund of £20,000, enabling researchers across the world to publish their research, quickly (usually within a matter of weeks), without any Article Processing Charges.

For universities and students the challenges are also immense. We recognise how hard it is to learn remotely, often in isolation from friends, lecturers and colleagues, so we are making our learning resources as freely available as possible on our Emerald Insight platform, together with easy guides to remote access, support from our Customer Support Portal and chat rooms to keep up to date with new information and share experiences. We have also given universities exclusive access to Oxford Analytica’s Expert Briefings which has all the latest information and analysis of worldwide events related to global politics, economics, business and society, including a rich archive of over 20,000 briefings.

Finally, we know that good leadership and management is going to be a foundation in rebuilding, so within the business world, Emerald Works and MindTools, who provide thousands of online and on-demand resources designed to improve the performance of employees, have launched a free COVID-19 support pack offering more than 20 articles and videos on topics such as working from home, running virtual meetings, mental health and decision-making under pressure. All of these can be found on our MindTools platform. Emerald Works have joined ‘Learning News TV’ to share how we are offering content as a business that can support the wider Learning and Development community at this time.

For our colleagues

Colleagues in all our offices worldwide are working from home to protect themselves, their families and others around them.  Giving them the tools, flexibility and breathing space to adjust to a new way of working is really important, as well as safeguarding their mental wellbeing – and their sanity at times, especially those caring for others, young and old.  We continue to champion flexibility, teamwork, shared purpose, and doing the right things by each other and our communities. It’s also important to maintain a sense of fun in these difficult times, so our weekly quizzes, ‘hands up’ meetings, and other ‘virtual’ social activities remain an important part of daily life, and to us, are as important as adapting processes and policies, such as extending sick pay, to give colleagues the safety and support they need, in a way that will enable them to concentrate on what really matters most right now; staying safe and protecting lives.

For our communities

This is a really worrying time for everyone, including our charity partners and local communities worldwide.  We remain committed to supporting all our communities though The Emerald Foundation which will continue to support selected sports, arts and animal charities in Yorkshire, where our headquarters are based, as well as extending how we can support communities across the globe in other ways at this unprecedented time. Other plans include setting up local partnerships in all Emerald global locations to encourage employees to support, either through fundraising or volunteering, and providing free content to Emerald’s Charity Partners to support entrepreneurs and small businesses who are directly impacted by the pandemic. Our colleagues remain as ingenious as ever in supporting our communities, through fund raising quizzes, online fitness classes, and other unique and engaging ways to keep the community alive, be it a drink with colleagues on Fridays via Microsoft Teams or ‘Through the Keyhole’ game with pictures from colleagues’ homes. We firmly believe, that only together can we tackle and beat COVID-19 – because only together, can we make a real impact.