Journals invite too few women to referee

Lerback, Jory; Hanson, Brooks

doi:10.1038/541455a

Cited by 241 publications

(243 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…In this study, we found that apart from a few outliers depending on country and discipline, women are underrepresented in the scientific community with a very slow trend towards balance, which is consistent with earlier studies (Larivière et al, 2013; Fox et al, 2016; Topaz and Sen, 2016; Lerback and Hanson, 2017; Nature Neuroscience, 2006; Shen, 2013; Nature, 2012). In addition, we found that women contribute to the system-relevant peer-reviewing chain even less than expected by their numerical underrepresentation, revealing novel and subtler forms of bias than numeric disproportion alone.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Gender bias in scholarly peer review

Helmer

Schottdorf

Neef

et al. 2017

eLife

294

283

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Peer review is the cornerstone of scholarly publishing and it is essential that peer reviewers are appointed on the basis of their expertise alone. However, it is difficult to check for any bias in the peer-review process because the identity of peer reviewers generally remains confidential. Here, using public information about the identities of 9000 editors and 43000 reviewers from the Frontiers series of journals, we show that women are underrepresented in the peer-review process, that editors of both genders operate with substantial same-gender preference (homophily), and that the mechanisms of this homophily are gender-dependent. We also show that homophily will persist even if numerical parity between genders is reached, highlighting the need for increased efforts to combat subtler forms of gender bias in scholarly publishing.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.21718.001

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Gender bias in scholarly peer review

Helmer

Schottdorf

Neef

et al. 2017

eLife

294

283

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In the geosciences, for example, although there are significant numbers of women earning geoscience degrees in the US ) these numbers are not translating into equivalent female representation in academic faculty (Glass 2015) or professional activities such as journal refereeing (Lerback and Hanson 2017). Similarly, lower than expected representation of women has been observed in editorial boards in mathematics (Topaz and Sen 2016) and as invited conference speakers in ecology and conservation (Schroeder et al 2013;Sardelis and Drew 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Diversity in geoscience: Participation, behaviour, and the division of scientific labour at a Canadian geoscience conference

King

MacKenzie

Tadaki

et al. 2018

FACETS

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Effective policies promoting diversity in geoscience require understanding of how the values and practices of the community support the inclusion of different social groups. As sites of knowledge exchange and professional development, academic conferences are important culturing institutions that can alleviate or reproduce barriers to diversity in geoscience. This study examines diversity at a 2017 geoscience conference, the joint Canadian Geophysical Union and Canadian Society of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology annual meeting, through observation of participation, presentation content, and behaviour in conference sessions. Across 256 observed presentations, women constituted 28% of speakers, whereas women of colour made up only 5%. Participation rates differed between disciplinary sections, with the most populous sessions (Hydrology and Earth Surface) having the lowest percentage of women. Examination of presentation content reveals that the methods and scholarly contributions of both women and people of colour differed from the majority, suggesting an intellectual division of labour in geoscience. Examination of audience behaviours between presenters reveals how a "chilly climate" can be experienced by women and other marginalized demographics in conferences. We argue that there is more to be done than simply increasing numbers of women or other minorities in geoscientific spaces, and we suggest pathways to making geoscience a more inclusive and democratic pursuit.

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“…Although there are many reasons for this “leaky pipeline” (Gasser & Shaffer, 2014; Goulden, Mason, & Frasch, 2011; Holmes, OConnell, & Dutt, 2015), increasing training and avoiding biases in reference letters may benefit not only women, but also the greater scientific community by promoting innovation through diversity and inclusion. Further, there are many topics such as referee opportunity bias (Lerback & Hanson, 2017), the childcare‐conference conundrum (Calisi & A Working Group of Mothers in Science, 2018), and misconceptions around hiring preferences (Williams & Ceci, 2015) that should also be addressed to reduce disadvantages to women. With the brief mention of this topic, we hope to stimulate future studies of gatekeeping practices in the field of conservation, so institutions can develop initiatives to recruit, retain, and advance women in STEM fields as mentorship will be essential for eliminating gender bias in computer science, bioinformatics, and by extension, conservation biology.…”

Section: Increasing Contributions By Women (Sarah Hendricks and Brennmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent advances in conservation and population genomics data analysis

Hendricks

Anderson

Antão

et al. 2018

Evolutionary Applications

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New computational methods and next‐generation sequencing (NGS) approaches have enabled the use of thousands or hundreds of thousands of genetic markers to address previously intractable questions. The methods and massive marker sets present both new data analysis challenges and opportunities to visualize, understand, and apply population and conservation genomic data in novel ways. The large scale and complexity of NGS data also increases the expertise and effort required to thoroughly and thoughtfully analyze and interpret data. To aid in this endeavor, a recent workshop entitled “Population Genomic Data Analysis,” also known as “ConGen 2017,” was held at the University of Montana. The ConGen workshop brought 15 instructors together with knowledge in a wide range of topics including NGS data filtering, genome assembly, genomic monitoring of effective population size, migration modeling, detecting adaptive genomic variation, genomewide association analysis, inbreeding depression, and landscape genomics. Here, we summarize the major themes of the workshop and the important take‐home points that were offered to students throughout. We emphasize increasing participation by women in population and conservation genomics as a vital step for the advancement of science. Some important themes that emerged during the workshop included the need for data visualization and its importance in finding problematic data, the effects of data filtering choices on downstream population genomic analyses, the increasing availability of whole‐genome sequencing, and the new challenges it presents. Our goal here is to help motivate and educate a worldwide audience to improve population genomic data analysis and interpretation, and thereby advance the contribution of genomics to molecular ecology, evolutionary biology, and especially to the conservation of biodiversity.

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Journals invite too few women to referee

Abstract: Journals invite too few women to refereeJory Lerback and Brooks Hanson present an analysis that reveals evidence of gender bias in peer review for scholarly publications. US geoscientists on an expedition in

Cited by 241 publications

References 9 publications

Gender bias in scholarly peer review

Gender bias in scholarly peer review

Diversity in geoscience: Participation, behaviour, and the division of scientific labour at a Canadian geoscience conference

Recent advances in conservation and population genomics data analysis

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