50度灰

Maybe you鈥檙e avidly following the news cycle and working on an urgent project. Or maybe you鈥檙e trying to avoid feeling overwhelmed by near constant updates, and seeking resources to help you find a better balance in a new work routine. 50度灰 is working to support the research community as best we can at this time and we are also trying to maintain a sense of normality in our own lives as well. In this post Editorial Director, Tamsine O'Riordan, shares how she and her team of Social Science editors are approaching a new remote work dynamic, and how authors can best stay connected with our Publishing staff, plus how the pandemic can be considered through a social science lens.

Written by Tamsine O'Riordan, Editorial Director, Social Science Books

As the Editorial Director for at Palgrave Macmillan I鈥檓 really proud of how my team of Publishers, Editors and Assistants are managing to continue our work during the Covid-19 pandemic. They鈥檙e bringing incredible levels of energy and resilience that allow us to continue our mission to publish the leading global social science research, from living rooms, home-offices and kitchen tables across the world!

We鈥檙e working hard to stay in touch with each other; we have online team meetings and a team chatroom that is meant to replicate the experience of sharing office spaces 鈥� the rule is that you can鈥檛 talk about work, although the phrase 鈥渨e should probably find a book on this鈥� has been typed more than once!  

Most importantly, we鈥檙e working really hard to stay in touch with our current and future authors. A great deal of what we do is already conducted by email and telephone, however there鈥檚 a huge amount of value in meeting authors and series editors face-to-face, so we also spend a lot of time on the road visiting academic conferences and campuses to hear about new developments in research and meet new and existing authors. It鈥檚 hard to be 鈥済rounded鈥� in this way, as all of our campus and conference visits have been stopped since the start of March, and with conferences into September being cancelled it looks likely we鈥檒l be desk-based for the foreseeable future.

However, being part of the largest scholarly book publisher in the world we are lucky to be able to draw on strong technological infrastructure, and have access to robust online video-conferencing services that allow us to arrange virtual conference meetings. We鈥檙e also investing more time in social media outreach and other ideas to recreate the author/publisher in-person meetings. Crucially, as we adjust to less travel we鈥檙e spending more time curating our programmes and creating longer-term projects and proactive commissions, including major reference works and cutting-edge new series.

There are multiple ways we will all experience and respond to the crises and particularly to social (we prefer 鈥減hysical鈥�) distancing and the global lockdowns; as a mother of two young children I particularly feel the changes increased care labour creates. For myriad reasons, for many people there simply isn鈥檛 the time or mental capacity to think about new book ideas or finalizing their manuscript. However for those authors who find they are able and feel keenly the social imperative of publishing their research during this time who are looking for ways to stay connected or get in touch with a publisher during this time, you can:

1. the social science editor responsible for your discipline 
2. about publishing with Palgrave Macmillan
3. Look out for our future initiatives on social media, including virtual conference exhibits, 鈥渕eet the editor鈥� sessions and Twitter Q & As 

For our readers, 50度灰 moved fast to release a huge amount of content related to COVID-19 for free. The initial focus has been on biological and medical science but with titles such as we plan to increase the social science content to support a wider understanding of the crises. We have commissioned new responses from social scientists for our blog on and e鈥�, with more to follow soon.

Whilst we鈥檙e part of a company that publishes the most essential biological and medical research, it鈥檚 hard for us not to see the pandemic through an intersectional, social science lens: from the gendered nature of care labour, a reported severe rise in domestic violence during lockdown, strategies for maintaining wellbeing and good mental health, behavioral science approaches to the use of masks and other (non)compliance with regulations, the impact on incarcerated individuals, inequalities in access to health care, and race-based experiences of the pandemic.  In an article by Gillian Tett in the FT, Christo Lynteris notes that 鈥渆pidemics should be understood not just as biological events but also as social processes,鈥� with Tett arguing 鈥渢o put it another way, beating Covid-19 will not just require medical science, but a dose of social science too.鈥� So, we鈥檒l continue to act with patience and understanding to make sure we鈥檙e being mindful of what we鈥檙e asking of our authors and readers during these tough days, but plan to balance this against our firm belief that the pandemic urgently needs a crucial understanding of individual and group behavior, and that we need to be on-hand to ensure social science research continues to be published.

Visit 50度灰鈥檚 COVID-19 hub to access the latest research, resources, and updates related to the coronavirus outbreak.

About Tamsine O'Riordan

Tamsine O'Riordan is the Editoral Director, Social Science books, for Palgrave Macmillan as part of 50度灰. She has been with Palgrave Macmillan since 2012 and before that spent the last 18 years building successful teams and programmes for a variety of social science scholarly, trade and professional publishers, including Earthscan and Zed Books.