Gender gap in journal submissions and peer review during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A study on 2329 Elsevier journals

Messing with Merton: The intersection between open science practices and Mertonian values

Although adherence to Mertonian values of science (i.e., communism, universalism, organized skepticism, disinterestedness) is desired and promoted in academia, such adherence can cause friction with the normative structures and practices of Open Science. Mertonian values and Open Science practices aim to improve the conduct and communication of research and are promoted by institutional actors. However, Mertonian values remain mostly idealistic and contextualized in local and disciplinary cultures and Open Science practices rely heavily on third-party resources and technology that are not equally accessible to all parties. Furthermore, although still popular, Mertonian values were developed in a different institutional and political context. In this article, we argue that new normative structures for science need to look beyond nostalgia and consider aspirations and outcomes of Open Science practices. To contribute to such a vision, we explore the intersection of several Open Science practices with Mertonian values to flesh out challenges involved in upholding these values. We demonstrate that this intersection becomes complicated when the interests of numerous groups collide and contrast. Acknowledging and exploring such tensions informs our understanding of researchers' behavior and supports efforts that seek to improve researchers' interactions with other normative structures such as research ethics and integrity frameworks.

"The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on research activities: A survey of the largest Italian academic community"

PURPOSE

The aim of the present work is to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on research activities in a vast multidisciplinary academic community to identify the most critical issues.

METHOD

To this purpose we planned a survey addressed to the entire academic research staff at "Sapienza" University of Rome, which represents the largest Italian academic community. A questionnaire consisting of both open and closed-ended questions was delivered to 4118 individuals in April 2021.

RESULTS

A total of 544 responses were collected. All academic roles were sufficiently represented in the study cohort. The median number of critical issues experienced by academic research staff was three. Among these, the three most frequently reported were related to: "Access to libraries / laboratories / research sites" (21.9%), "Limitation to stay abroad / study / research periods" (17.6%), "Progress of experimental work" (14.7%), with variable prevalence according to academic position and gender. Older subjects reported issues with "Projects' financial reporting" and "Expiration of acquired consumable material more frequently". The most common critical aspects reported in relation to the economic burden were: being "Unable to allocate funds" (31.4%), a "Reduction in clinical and scientific activity" (26.3%) and experiencing "Increased expenses (comprising private costs)" (21.2%) with no differences between genders. Researchers in Applied Sciences and Natural Sciences reported a higher frequency of problems in clinical and scientific activities, whereas increased expenses were reported also by researchers operating in the Humanities field. As a possible solution aimed at improving these issues, most subjects, especially those aged >45 years, indicated "Economic aid" (22.6%), "Reduction in bureaucracy" (19.9%) or "Enhancement of the scientific and clinical activities", whereas those aged ≤45 years felt that an increased duration and better access to PhD programs were to be prioritized.

CONCLUSION

Our findings highlight the most critical issues related to research activities during the COVID-19 pandemic in a large academic community. The information achieved may be useful to identify researchers' needs and to design appropriate policies aimed at preparing research institutions for unexpected catastrophic events and limiting the negative impact on academic research activities.

Peer review trends in six fisheries science journals

BACKGROUND

As the production of scientific manuscripts and journal options both increase, the peer review process remains at the center of quality control. Recent advances in understanding reviewer biases and behaviors along with electronic manuscript handling records have allowed unprecedented investigations into the peer review process.

METHODS

We examined a sample of six journals within the field of fisheries science (and all published by the American Fisheries Society) specifically looking for changes in reviewer invitation rates, review time, patterns of reviewer agreements, and rejection rates relative to different forms of blinding.

RESULTS

Data from 6,606 manuscripts from 2011-2021 showed significant increases in reviewer invitations. Specifically, four journals showed statistically significant increases in reviewer invitations while two showed no change. Review times changed relatively little (± 2 weeks), and we found no concerning patterns in reviewer agreement. However, we documented a consistently higher rejection rate-around 20% higher-of double-blinded manuscripts when compared to single-blinded manuscripts.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings likely represent broader trends across fisheries science publications, and possibly extend to other life science disciplines. Because peer review remains a primary tool for scientific quality control, authors and editors are encouraged to understand the process and evaluate its performance at whatever level can help in the creation of trusted science. Minimally, our findings can help the six journals we investigated to better understand and improve their peer review processes.

Evaluation of Culture Conducive to Academic Success by Gender at a Comprehensive Cancer Center

INTRODUCTION

The primary objective of this study was to determine whether workplace culture in academic oncology differed by gender, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We used the Culture Conducive to Women's Academic Success (CCWAS), a validated survey tool, to investigate the academic climate at an NCI-designated Cancer Center. We adapted the CCWAS to be applicable to people of all genders. The full membership of the Cancer Center was surveyed (total faculty = 429). The questions in each of 4 CCWAS domains (equal access to opportunities, work-life balance, freedom from gender bias, and leadership support) were scored using a 5-point Likert scale. Median score and interquartile ranges for each domain were calculated.

RESULTS

A total of 168 respondents (men = 58, women = 106, n = 4 not disclosed) submitted survey responses. The response rate was 39% overall and 70% among women faculty. We found significant differences in perceptions of workplace culture by gender, both in responses to individual questions and in the overall score in the following domains: equal access to opportunities, work-life balance, and leader support, and in the total score for the CCWAS.

CONCLUSIONS

Our survey is the first of its kind completed during the COVID-19 pandemic at an NCI-designated Cancer Center, in which myriad factors contributed to burnout and workplace challenges. These results point to specific issues that detract from the success of women pursuing careers in academic oncology. Identifying these issues can be used to design and implement solutions to improve workforce culture, mitigate gender bias, and retain faculty.

Interventions reducing mortality in COVID-19 patients: a systematic review of randomized evidence

INTRODUCTION

COVID-19 pandemic changed the way medical research is published, possibly forever. As the need for rapidity led to the rise of preprint servers, the undeniable drop in the overall quality of scientific publications requires an in-depth review of all available evidence. The present manuscript aims to identify and summarize all treatments which have been reported to reduce mortality in randomized trials in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

EVIDENCE ACQUISITION

Independent investigators searched MEDLINE/PubMed, Scopus, and Embase databases to identify all randomized trials of any intervention influencing mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients up to August 18th, 2022. Articles were selected only when they fulfilled all the following: randomized trial design; dealing with any kind of interventions in adult hospitalized COVID-19 patients; and statistically significant reduction in mortality.

EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS

We identified 28 interventions (42 manuscripts) reducing mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. About 60% of the studies (26/42) were multicentric, for a total of 1140 centers involved worldwide. Several of these studies were published in high-ranked, peer-reviewed journals. Interventions with randomized evidence of mortality reduction in hospitalized COVID-19 patients belonged to 5 domains: corticosteroids, immunomodulators, antimicrobials, supportive therapies, and other drugs.

CONCLUSIONS

Many interventions have the potential to reduce mortality in COVID-19 hospitalized patients. The correct treatment of future pandemics relies on large, multicentric randomized clinical trials for further evaluation of these promising strategies.

Perceived research productivity of women in higher education: An investigation of the impact of COVID-19

This study focuses on the predictors of women academics' perceived research productivity during the pandemic in Türkiye, by taking the changes in paid and unpaid workload alongside the felt pressure concerning productivity into consideration. Predicting the odds to report an above the mean level of decrease in perceived research productivity, unlike expected, increased housework time and administrative workload presented no statistically significant effect. On the other hand, extended care responsibilities (including but not limited to childcare) and felt pressure concerning research performance during the pandemic strongly predicted a high level of reported decrease in research productivity. Findings highlight that institutional care support mechanisms should be among the primary concerns since the pandemic has made the already existing gender inequalities in academia more visible in terms of the challenges women face in balancing paid and unpaid work. In addition, as excess pressure felt by women academics regarding research performance is linked to a decline in reported productivity, creating a compassionate environment in academia not only in unprecedented circumstances but at all times needs to be priority.

COVID-19 as a chronic stressor and the importance of individual identity: A data-driven look at academic productivity during the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted personal and professional life. For academics, research, teaching, and service tasks were upended and we all had to navigate the altered landscape. However, some individuals faced a disproportionate burden, particularly academics with minoritized identities or those who were early career, were caregivers, or had intersecting identities. As comparative endocrinologists, we determine how aspects of individual and species-level variation influence response to, recovery from, and resilience in the face of stressors. Here, we flip that framework and apply an integrative biological lens to the impact of the COVID-19 chronic stressor on our endocrine community. We address how the pandemic altered impact factors of academia (e.g., scholarly products) and relatedly, how factors of impact (e.g., sex, gender, race, career stage, caregiver status, etc.) altered the way in which individuals could respond. We predict the pandemic will have long-term impacts on the population dynamics, composition, and landscape of our academic ecosystem. Impact factors of research, namely journal submissions, were altered by COVID-19, and women authors saw a big dip. We discuss this broadly and then report General and Comparative Endocrinology (GCE) manuscript submission and acceptance status by gender and geographic region from 2019 to 2023. We also summarize how the pandemic impacted individuals with different axes of identity, how academic institutions have responded, compile proposed solutions, and conclude with a discussion on what we can all do to (re)build the academy in an equitable way. At GCE, the first author positions had gender parity, but men outnumbered women at the corresponding author position. Region of manuscript origin mattered for submission and acceptance rates, and women authors from Asia and the Middle East were the most heavily impacted by the pandemic. The number of manuscripts submitted dropped after year 1 of the pandemic and has not yet recovered. Thus, COVID-19 was a chronic stressor for the GCE community.

Gender imbalances in the editorial activities of a selective journal run by academic editors

The fairness of decisions made at various stages of the publication process is an important topic in meta-research. Here, based on an analysis of data on the gender of authors, editors and reviewers for 23,876 initial submissions and 7,192 full submissions to the journal eLife, we report on five stages of the publication process. We find that the board of reviewing editors (BRE) is men-dominant (69%) and that authors disproportionately suggest male editors when making an initial submission. We do not find evidence for gender bias when Senior Editors consult Reviewing Editors about initial submissions, but women Reviewing Editors are less engaged in discussions about these submissions than expected by their proportion. We find evidence of gender homophily when Senior Editors assign full submissions to Reviewing Editors (i.e., men are more likely to assign full submissions to other men (77% compared to the base assignment rate to men RE of 70%), and likewise for women (41% compared to women RE base assignment rate of 30%))). This tendency was stronger in more gender-balanced scientific disciplines. However, we do not find evidence for gender bias when authors appeal decisions made by editors to reject submissions. Together, our findings confirm that gender disparities exist along the editorial process and suggest that merely increasing the proportion of women might not be sufficient to eliminate this bias. Measures accounting for women's circumstances and needs (e.g., delaying discussions until all RE are engaged) and raising editorial awareness to women's needs may be essential to increasing gender equity and enhancing academic publication.

The invisible frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic: Examining sourcing and the underrepresentation of female expertise in pandemic news coverage

Several studies have shown that female experts are seldom quoted within news media coverage about health and science issues. Yet, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and subsequent race for a vaccine, female health and science workers (broadly defined) were at the forefront of the discovery, testing, and implementation of several vaccinations. This study examines the extent to which female experts were represented in news coverage about the vaccine over a 2-year period in The New York Times (n = 1978). Of the expert sources quoted (3,555), the majority were male (n = 2417) as compared to female (n = 1138). This pattern held when looking specifically at researchers and medical experts. When both a male and female source were quoted, however, females were quoted first, suggesting that females were given the role of being a primary rather than supporting expert. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Scholarly Productivity of US Medical Schools Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

OBJECTIVES

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic profoundly disrupted scientific research but was accompanied by a rapid increase in biomedical research focused on this new disease. We aimed to study how the academic productivity of US medical schools changed during the pandemic and what structural characteristics of medical schools were associated with trends in scholarly publication.

METHODS

Annual totals of publications for each US Doctor of Medicine-granting medical school were extracted for 2019 to 2021 from the Scopus database, and schools were categorized a priori as experiencing a sustained increase in publications, a transient increase in publications, or no increase in publications. Bivariate tests compared school characteristics among these three groups.

RESULTS

Of 139 Doctor of Medicine-granting medical schools, 79% experienced sustained growth in publications from 2019 to 2021, 6% experienced transient growth, and 14% experienced no growth. Sustained growth in publications was associated with being affiliated with a research-intensive university, larger faculty size, the presence of an Emergency Medicine residency, having higher baseline National Institutes of Health funding, and experiencing higher coronavirus disease 2019 infection rates in the local community during the early months of the pandemic. Among predominantly White institutions, a higher diversity of female faculty was associated with a higher likelihood of experiencing transient rather than sustained growth in publications.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results demonstrate that scientific output increased during the pandemic at most medical schools, despite significant barriers to research experienced by individual investigators. Further attention is needed to enhance equity in research opportunities, considering diverging trends in productivity between more- and less-advantaged schools, however.

A qualitative analysis of the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on gender biases in an Irish University

This paper explores the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on gender biases in a STEM Faculty in an Irish University. For the purposes of this research, gender bias was understood as gender-based inclinations or prejudices which affect researchers' personal and professional opportunities as described by fifteen interviewees (nine women, six men). We used thematic interviews to explore participants' perspectives. Analyzing interviews with an inductive approach showed that gender biases experienced before COVID-19 restrictions were different from biases during restrictions. In discussing gender biases prior to the pandemic, interviewees mentioned institutional disparities, discrimination, implicit biases, stereotypes and gender roles. When discussing gender issues during COVID restrictions, interviewees mentioned disparities at home, challenges involved in parenting, support from colleagues and the University, as well as negative and positive impacts of restrictions on existing gender issues. Our results show that while COVID-19 restrictions and the associated consequences constrained all gender groups, they most negatively affected women researchers with caring responsibilities. Moving forward, reducing gender disparities requires promoting a horizontal organizational structure, and adjusting policies and work arrangements to cater for vulnerable cohorts such as parents, and international and early-career researchers. Offering a hybrid working model that grants more flexibility to those with caring responsibilities and which accommodates personal circumstances would help improve the working conditions for all researchers and nurture an organizational culture of care for the employees; thereby also fostering gender equity and tolerance.

Relational practices for meaningful inclusion in health research: Results of a deliberative dialogue study

INTRODUCTION

The importance of including people affected by research (e.g., community members, citizens or patient partners) is increasingly recognized across the breadth of institutions involved in connecting research with action. Yet, the increasing rhetoric of inclusion remains situated in research systems that tend to reward traditional dissemination and uphold power dynamics in ways that centre particular (privileged) voices over others. In research explicitly interested in doing research with those most affected by the issue or outcomes, research teams need to know how to advance meaningful inclusion. This study focused on listening to voices often excluded from research processes to understand what meaningful inclusion looks and feels like, and asked what contributes to being or feeling tokenized.

METHODS

In this deliberative dialogue study, 16 participants with experience of navigating social exclusions and contributing to research activities reflected on what makes for meaningful experiences of inclusion. Using a co-production approach, with a diversely representative research team of 15 that included patient and community partners, we used critically reflective dialogue to guide an inclusive process to study design and implementation, from conceptualization of research questions through to writing.

RESULTS

We heard that: research practices, partnerships and systems all contribute to experiences of inclusion or exclusion; the insufficiency or absence of standards for accountability amplifies the experience of exclusion; and inclusive practices require intention, planning, reflection and resources.

CONCLUSIONS

We offer evidence-informed recommendations for the deeply relational work and practices for inclusivity, focused on promising practices for cultivating welcoming systems, spaces and relationships.

PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

This work reflects a co-production approach, where people who use and are affected by research results actively partnered in the research process, including study design, data-generating activities, analysis and interpretation, and writing. Several of these partners are authors of this manuscript.

Distribution of Female and Male First and Last Authorship across Drug Delivery Related Journals with Respect to Year and Journal Impact Factor

First and last authorship are important metrics of productivity and scholarly success for trainees and professors. For 11 drug delivery-related journals in 2021, the percentage of female first (39.5%) and last (25.7%) authorship was reported. A strong negative correlation, with female first (rp = -0.73) and female last authorship (rp = -0.66), was observed with respect to journal impact factor. In contrast, there was a strong positive correlation with male first and last authorship (rp = 0.71). Papers were ∼1.5 times more likely to have a male first author, and ∼3 times more likely to have a male last author, than females. A female was 22% more likely to have first authorship if the last author was female, although there is an ∼1% increase per year in female authorship with male last authorship, which equates to equality in first authorship by 2044. Considering that drug delivery is composed of engineering, chemistry, and pharmaceutical science disciplines, the observed 25.7% female last authorship does not represent the approximately 35.5% to 50% of professors that are female in these disciplines, internationally. Overall, female authorship in drug delivery-related journals should improve to better represent the work of female senior authors.

Burnout Among Breast Radiologists: How Can We Restore Fulfillment?

Physician burnout is increasing in prevalence and has negative implications for the quality of patient care and the health and wellbeing of physicians. Surveys before the COVID-19 pandemic showed high rates of burnout among breast radiologists, and the COVID-19 pandemic has further increased stress. This article summarizes strategies to combat burnout, including improving individual resilience by increasing mindfulness about handling stress, making goals, and noting personal accomplishments. However, more effective change is likely to occur when there is change at both a personal and an organizational level, which includes identifying the stakeholders in a workplace and determining what changes must occur to increase joy and decrease rates of burnout. Despite the increasing rates of burnout, breast radiologists report high rates of personal career satisfaction. Self-reflection and positive steps to increase joy at work are important in maintaining career fulfillment in these challenging times.

Gender Differences in Research Productivity of Academic Physicians Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Objective: The gendered impact of the COVID-19 on scientific productivity has been primarily studied in nonclinical academic fields. We investigated the gendered effect of the pandemic on diverse measures of research participation among physician faculty, who experienced an increase in clinical duties concomitant with pandemic-era challenges to research. Materials and Methods: Physician faculty employed in both 2019 (prepandemic) and 2021 (pandemic era) were identified at one U.S. medical school. Annual outcomes included scientific publications, Institutional Review Board (IRB)-approved protocols, and extramural funding submissions (funding data were unavailable for 2019). Mixed-effects Poisson regression models compared the pandemic impact by gender. Results: The study included 105 women and 116 men, contributing to 122 publications, 214 IRB protocols, and 99 extramural funding applications. Controlling for potential confounders such as faculty rank and track (tenure vs. nontenure), women's publication count increased by 140% during the pandemic (95% confidence interval [CI]: +40% to +310%, p = 0.001) but was unchanged among men (95% CI: -30% to +50%; p > 0.999). The number of IRB protocols decreased from 2019 to 2021, but to a greater extent among men than women. In 2021, there was no gender difference in the number of extramural funding submissions. Conclusions: Among physician faculty at our medical school, women achieved parity with men on multiple measures of scholarly activity, and women's research productivity outpaced that of men in the same faculty track and rank. Targeted initiatives to support research among women faculty, junior investigators, and clinical investigators may have helped avert exacerbation of prepandemic gender disparities in research participation.

Analysis of peer reviewers' response to invitations by gender and geographical region: cohort study of manuscripts reviewed at 21 biomedical journals before and during covid-19 pandemic

OBJECTIVES

To describe gender and geographical inequalities in invitations to review and the response to these invitations and to assess whether inequalities increased during the covid-19 pandemic.

DESIGN

Retrospective cohort study.

SETTING

19 specialist medical journals and two large general medical journals from BMJ Publishing Group.

POPULATION

Reviewers invited to review manuscripts submitted between 1 January 2018 and 31 May 2021. The cohort was followed up to 28 February 2022.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Reviewer's agreement to review.

RESULTS

A total of 257 025 reviewers were invited (38.6% (88 454/228 869) women), and 90 467 (35.2%) agreed to review. Invited reviewers were mainly (217 682; 84.7%) affiliated with high income countries: Europe (122 414; 47.6%), North America (66 931; 26.0%), Africa (25 735; 10.0%), Asia (22 693; 8.8%), Oceania (16 175; 6.3%), and South America (3076; 1.2%). Independent factors associated with agreement to review were gender (odds ratio 0.89, 95% confidence interval 0.87 to 0.92, for women compared with men), geographical affiliation (2.89, 2.73 to 3.06, for Asia; 3.32, 2.94 to 3.75 for South America; 1.35, 1.27 to 1.43, for Oceania; and 0.35, 0.33 to 0.37, for Africa compared with Europe), and country income (0.47, 0.45 to 0.49, for upper middle income; 5.12, 4.67 to 5.61, for lower middle income; and 4.66, 3.79 to 5.73, for low income compared with high income country). Agreement was also independently associated with editor's gender (0.96, 0.93 to 0.99, for women compared with men), last author's geographical affiliation (0.80, 0.78 to 0.83, for Asia; 0.89, 0.85 to 0.94, for Oceania compared with Europe), impact factor (1.78, 1.27 to 2.50, for >10 compared with <5), and type of peer review process (0.52, 0.35 to 0.77, for open compared with anonymised). During the first and second phases of the pandemic, agreement was lower than in the pre-pandemic period (P<0.001). The interaction between time periods and covid-19 related topic and reviewer's gender was non-significant. However, significant interaction was found between time periods and covid-19 related topic and reviewer's geographical affiliation.

CONCLUSIONS

To reduce bias and improve diversity, editors need to identify and implement effective strategies and continually evaluate progress against these to ensure that more women and researchers from upper middle income and low income countries are involved in review.

Gender Composition in Biomedical Research Grant Submissions and Grant Review Panels Before Versus During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Purpose: This study examined the gender composition of career development award applicants and grant review panels during the pandemic compared with that beforehand. Methods: Data were collected from 14 Health Research Alliance (HRA) organizations, which fund biomedical research and training. HRA members provided the gender of grant applicants and grant reviewers during the pandemic (April 1, 2020, to February 28, 2021) and prepandemic (April 1, 2019, to February 29, 2020). The signed-rank test compared medians and the chi square test compared the overall gender distribution. Results: The total number of applicants was similar during the pandemic (N = 3,724) and prepandemic (N = 3,882) periods, as was the percentage of women applicants (45.2% pandemic vs. 44.9% prepandemic, p = 0.78). The total number of men and women grant reviewers declined during the pandemic (N = 856) compared with that pre-pandemic (N = 1,689); this decrease was driven by a change for the largest funder. Also driven by changes for this one funder, the percentage of total grant reviewers who were women increased significantly during the pandemic (45.9%) compared with that during prepandemic (38.8%; p = 0.001), but the median percentage of women grant reviewers across organizations remained similar during the pandemic (43.6%) and prepandemic periods (38.2%; p = 0.53). Conclusions: In a sample of research organizations, the gender composition of grant applicants and grant review panels remained similar, except for the review panel composition for one large funder. Given evidence from other studies that have revealed gender differences in other career and life experiences of scientists during the pandemic, ongoing evaluation of women's representation in grant submission and review mechanisms is essential.

Gender differences in COVID-19-related manuscript authorship by hospitalists during the pandemic: A bibliometric analysis

BACKGROUND

Hospital medicine (HM) has a well-described gender disparity related to academic work and promotion. During the COVID-19 pandemic, female authorship across medicine fell further behind historical averages.

OBJECTIVE

Examine how COVID-19 affected the publication gender gap for hospitalists.

DESIGN, SETTINGS, AND PARTICIPANTS

Bibliometric analysis to determine gender and specialty of US-based physician first and last authors of COVID-19 articles published March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021 in the four highest impact general medical journals and two highest impact HM-specific journals.

MAIN OUTCOME AND MEASURES

We characterized the percentage of all physician authors that were women, the percentage of physician authors that were hospitalists, and the percentage of HM authors that were women. We compared author gender between general medical and HM-specific journals.

RESULTS

During the study period, 853 manuscripts with US-based first or last authors were published in eligible journals. Included manuscripts contained 1124 US-based physician first or last author credits, of which 34.2% (384) were women and 8.8% (99) were hospitalists. Among hospitalist author credits, 43.4% (n = 43/99) were occupied by women. The relative gender equity for hospitalist authors was driven by the two HM journals where, compared to the four general medical journals, hospitalist authors (54.1% [33/61] vs. 26.3% [10/38] women, respectively, p = .002) and hospitalist last authors (51.9% [14/27] vs. 20% [4/20], p = .03) were more likely to be women.

CONCLUSIONS

Across COVID-19-related manuscripts, disparities by gender were driven by the high-impact general medical journals. HM-specific journals had more equitable inclusion of women authors, demonstrating the potential impact of proactive editorial policies on diversity.

Gender-specific effects of COVID-19 lockdowns on scientific publishing productivity: Impact and resilience

RATIONALE

The SARS-CoV2 pandemic led to drastic social restrictions globally. Early data suggest that women in science have been more adversely affected by these lockdowns than men, with relatively fewer scientific articles authored by women. However, these observations test broad populations with many potential causes of disparity. Australia presents a natural experimental condition where several states of similar demographics and disease impact had differing approaches in their social isolation strategies. The state of Victoria experienced 280 days of lockdowns from 2020 to 2021, whereas the comparable state of New South Wales experienced 107 days, most of these in 2021, and other states even fewer restrictions.

OBJECTIVE AND METHODS

To assess how the gender balance changed in Australian biomedical publishing with the lockdowns, we created a custom workflow to analyse PubMed data from more than 120,000 published articles submitted in 2019-2021 from Australian authors.

RESULTS

Broadly, Australian women have been incredibly resilient to the challenges faced by the lockdowns. There was an increase in the number of published articles submitted in 2020 that was equally due to women as men, including from Victoria. On the other hand, articles specifically addressing COVID-19 were significantly less likely to be authored by women than those on other topics, a finding not likely due to particular gender imbalance in virology or viral epidemiology, since publications on HIV followed similar patterns to previous years. By 2021, this imbalance had reversed, with more COVID-19-related papers authored by women than men.

CONCLUSIONS

These data suggest women from Victoria were less able to rapidly transition to new research early in the pandemic but had accommodated to the new conditions by 2021. This work indicates we need strategies to support women in science as the pandemic continues and to continue to monitor the situation for its impact on vulnerable groups.

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic Unmasked the Challenges Faced by Early-Stage Faculty in Infectious Diseases: A Call to Action

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and associated increase in family care responsibilities resulted in unsustainable personal and professional workloads for infectious diseases (ID) faculty on the front lines. This was especially true for early-stage faculty (ESF), many of whom had caregiving responsibilities. In addition, female faculty, underrepresented in medicine and science faculty and particularly ESF, experienced marked declines in research productivity, which significantly impacts career trajectories. When combined with staffing shortages due to an aging workforce and suboptimal recruitment and retention in ID, these work-life imbalances have brought the field to an inflection point. We propose actionable recommendations and call on ID leaders to act to close the gender, racial, and ethnic gaps to improve the recruitment, retention, and advancement of ESF in ID. By investing in systemic change to make the ID workforce more equitable, we can embody the shared ideals of diversity and inclusion and prepare for the next pandemic.

The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on gendered research productivity and its correlates

Female researchers may have experienced more difficulties than their male counterparts since the COVID-19 outbreak because of gendered housework and childcare. To test it, we constructed a unique dataset that connects 15,280,382 scholarly publications and their 11,828,866 authors retrieved from Microsoft Academic Graph data between 2016 and 2020 to various national characteristics from LinkedIn, Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, and Covid-19 Community Mobility Reports from Google. Using the dataset, this study estimated how much the proportion of female authors in academic journals on a global scale changed in 2020 (net of recent yearly trends). We observed a decrease in research productivity for female researchers in 2020, mostly as first authors, followed by last author position. We also identified various factors that amplified the gender gap by dividing the authors' backgrounds into individual, organizational and national characteristics. Female researchers were more vulnerable when they were in their mid-career, affiliated to the least influential organizations, and more importantly from less gender-equal countries with higher mortality and restricted mobility as a result of COVID-19. Our findings suggest that female researchers were not necessarily excluded from but were marginalized in research since the COVID-19 outbreak and we discuss its policy implications.

Gender Inequalities in Publications about COVID-19 in Spain: Authorship and Sex-Disaggregated Data

Gender inequalities in biomedical literature have been widely reported in authorship as well as the scarcity of results that are stratified by sex in the studies. We conducted a bibliometric review of articles on COVID-19 published in the main Spanish medical journals between April 2020 and May 2021. The purpose of this study was to analyse differences in authorship order and composition by sex and their evolution over time, as well as the frequency of sex-disaggregated empirical results and its relationship with the author sex in articles on COVID-19 in the main Spanish biomedical journals. We identified 914 articles and 4921 authors, 57.5% men and 42.5% women. Women accounted for 36.7% of first authors and for 33.7% of last authors. Monthly variation in authorship over the course of the pandemic indicates that women were always less likely to publish as first authors. Only 1.0% of the articles broke down empirical results by sex. Disaggregation of results by sex was significantly more frequent when women were first authors and when women were the majority in the authorship. It is important to make gender inequalities visible in scientific dissemination and to promote gender-sensitive research, which can help to reduce gender bias in clinical studies as well as to design public policies for post-pandemic recovery that are more gender-equitable.

Women Authorship Trends in the Highest-Impact Anesthesiology Journals from 2005 to 2021

Background: Although women and men have matriculated into medical schools in similar proportions since the 1980s, recent data indicate that anesthesiology is lagging in gender equity, especially in academic leadership roles.^1,2 As promotion in academic medicine is strongly influenced by publications, understanding whether a lack of women authorship is contributing to this gender gap is crucial.^3,4 This article aims to assess how woman authorship trends have changed in the last 16 years, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The five highest impact journals in anesthesia were identified as Journal of Clinical Anesthesia, British Journal of Anaesthesia, Anesthesiology, PAIN, and Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine. Number of total authors, including women, men, and unknown gender authors as well as incidence of woman first and/or last author, was documented from articles published in 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, and 2021. Results: This analysis shows that women are gaining representation in anesthesia publications. Overall, there was a statistically significant increase in the total number of women authors and women first and last authorship. However, as of 2021, women still only represented ∼40% of total and first authors and ∼24% of last authors. In addition, increase in first/last woman authorship was not present in all journals when stratified. Conclusion: These journal differences may suggest the editorial evaluation process as a potential source of gender bias. There was a statistically significant relationship between women senior authors and articles with 50% or more women authors, indicating that woman mentorship is contributing to closing equity gap. These data present a starting point for further investigations into gender disparities within anesthesia to continue the forward progression for women in academic medicine.

Peer Review in a General Medical Research Journal Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Importance

Although peer review is an important component of publication for new research, the viability of this process has been questioned, particularly with the added stressors of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective

To characterize rates of peer reviewer acceptance of invitations to review manuscripts, reviewer turnaround times, and editor-assessed quality of reviews before and after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic at a large, open-access general medical journal.

Design, Setting, and Participants

This retrospective, pre-post cohort study examined all research manuscripts submitted to JAMA Network Open between January 1, 2019, and June 29, 2021, either directly or via transfer from other JAMA Network journals, for which at least 1 peer review of manuscript content was solicited. Measures were compared between the period before the World Health Organization declaration of a COVID-19 pandemic on March 11, 2020 (14.3 months), and the period during the pandemic (15.6 months) among all reviewed manuscripts and between pandemic-period manuscripts that did or did not address COVID-19.

Main Outcomes and Measures

For each reviewed manuscript, the number of invitations sent to reviewers, proportions of reviewers accepting invitations, time in days to return reviews, and editor-assessed quality ratings of reviews were determined.

Results

In total, the journal sought review for 5013 manuscripts, including 4295 Original Investigations (85.7%) and 718 Research Letters (14.3%); 1860 manuscripts were submitted during the prepandemic period and 3153 during the pandemic period. Comparing the prepandemic with the pandemic period, the mean (SD) number of reviews rated as high quality (very good or excellent) per manuscript increased slightly from 1.3 (0.7) to 1.5 (0.7) (P < .001), and the mean (SD) time for reviewers to return reviews was modestly shorter (from 15.8 [7.6] days to 14.4 [7.0] days; P < .001), a difference that persisted in linear regression models accounting for manuscript type, study design, and whether the manuscript addressed COVID-19.

Conclusions and Relevance

In this cohort study, the speed and editor-reported quality of peer reviews in an open-access general medical journal improved modestly during the initial year of the pandemic. Additional study will be necessary to understand how the pandemic has affected reviewer burden and fatigue.

Commentary on Highly Successful Female Educational Psychologists: Equity and Intersectionality in Success Definitions

Despite the international focus on validation and success indicators of academic work across disciplines, examples of accomplished educational psychologists and their personal stories have been limited in the literature. Prinz et al. (2021) interviewed Five Highly Successful Female Educational Psychologists and offered a content analysis of their success stories, including the academics' strategies and trademark characteristics. In this Commentary, I expand on their findings in light of equity and intersectionality perspectives on academic success. I problematise academic success indicators (publication records and impact) with reference to literature on gender disparities in publication metrics and lack of inclusivity in generic measures of academic success. I outline how individual success narratives intersect with our collective responsibility for higher wellbeing and professional recognition of all colleagues. I argue that the equity and intersectionality perspectives are fundamental to inclusive narratives of success and highlight the power structures that have historically impeded access of diverse and minority scholars to top academic positions. I conclude with four recommendations for addressing the persistent structures of inequities in academic career opportunities.

Academic Productivity of Equity-Deserving Physician Scholars During COVID-19: A Scoping Review

PURPOSE

The COVID-19 pandemic presented new barriers and exacerbated existing inequities for physician scholars. While COVID-19's impact on academic productivity among women has received attention, the pandemic may have posed additional challenges for scholars from a wider range of equity-deserving groups, including those who hold multiple equity-deserving identities. To examine this concern, the authors conducted a scoping review of the literature through an intersectionality lens.

METHOD

The authors searched peer-reviewed literature published March 1, 2020, to December 16, 2021, in Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid Embase, and PubMed. The authors excluded studies not written in English and/or outside of academic medicine. From included studies, they extracted data regarding descriptions of how COVID-19 impacted academic productivity of equity-deserving physician scholars, analyses on the pandemic's reported impact on productivity of physician scholars from equity-deserving groups, and strategies provided to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on academic productivity of physician scholars from equity-deserving groups.

RESULTS

Of 11,587 unique articles, 44 met inclusion criteria, including 15 nonempirical studies and 29 empirical studies (22 bibliometrics studies, 6 surveys, and 1 qualitative study). All included articles focused on the gendered impact of the pandemic on academic productivity. The majority of their recommendations focused on how to alleviate the burden of the pandemic on women, particularly those in the early stages of their career and/or with children, without consideration of scholars who hold multiple and intersecting identities from a wider range of equity-deserving groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings indicate a lack of published literature on the pandemic's impact on physician scholars from equity-deserving groups, including a lack of consideration of physician scholars who experience multiple forms of discrimination. Well-intentioned measures by academic institutions to reduce the impact on scholars may inadvertently risk reproducing and sustaining inequities that equity-deserving scholars faced during the pandemic.

Gender and Geographic Origin as Determinants of Manuscript Publication Outcomes: JBMR® Bibliometric Analysis from 2017 to 2019

The Journal of Bone and Mineral Research (JBMR®), the flagship journal of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR), enjoys a premiere position in its field and has a global reach. The journal uses a single-blind peer-review process whereby three editors are typically involved in assessing each submission for publication, in addition to external reviewers. Although emphasizing fairness, rigor, and transparency, this process is not immune to the influence of unconscious biases. The gender and geographic diversity of JBMR® authors, editors, and reviewers has increased over the last three decades, but whether such diversity has affected peer-review outcomes is unknown. We analyzed manuscript acceptance rates based on the gender and geographic origin of authors, reviewers, and Associate Editors. The analysis included 1662 original research articles submitted to JBMR® from September 2017 through December 2019. Gender was assigned using probabilities from an online tool and manually validated through internet searches. Predictor variables of manuscript outcome were determined with multivariate logistic regression analysis. The acceptance rate was highest when the first and last authors were of different genders, and lowest when both authors were men. Reviewer gender did not influence the outcome regardless of the genders of the first and last authors. Associate Editors from all geographical regions tended to select reviewers from their same region. The acceptance rate was highest when the Associate Editor was from Europe. Manuscripts with authors from North America and Australia/New Zealand had greater overall odds of acceptance than those from Europe and Asia. Manuscripts reviewed only by Editorial Board (EB) members had a lower acceptance rate than those refereed by non-EB reviewers or a mix of EB and non-EB reviewers. Overall, the geographical origin of authors, reviewers, and editors, as well as reviewers' EB membership may influence manuscript decisions. Yet, the JBMR® peer-review process remains largely free from gender bias. © 2022 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR).

Institution and gender-related differences in publication speed before and during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic elicited a substantial hike in journal submissions and a global push to get medical evidence quickly through the review process. Editorial decisions and peer-assessments were made under intensified time constraints, which may have amplified social disparities in the outcomes of peer-reviewing, especially for COVID-19 related research. This study quantifies the differential impact of the pandemic on the duration of the peer-review process for women and men and for scientists at different strata of the institutional-prestige hierarchy. Using mixed-effects regression models with observations clustered at the journal level, we analysed newly available data on the submission and acceptance dates of 78,085 medical research articles published in 2019 and 2020. We found that institution-related disparities in the average time from manuscript submission to acceptance increased marginally in 2020, although half of the observed change was driven by speedy reviews of COVID-19 research. For COVID-19 papers, we found more substantial institution-related disparities in review times in favour of authors from highly-ranked institutions. Descriptive survival plots also indicated that scientists with prestigious affiliations benefitted more from fast-track peer reviewing than did colleagues from less reputed institutions. This difference was more pronounced for journals with a single-blind review procedure compared to journals with a double-blind review procedure. Gender-related changes in the duration of the peer-review process were small and inconsistent, although we observed a minor difference in the average review time of COVID-19 papers first authored by women and men.

Impact of COVID-19 lockdown in a biomedical research campus: A gender perspective analysis

From March to September 2020, researchers working at a biomedical scientific campus in Spain faced two lockdowns and various mobility restrictions that affected their social and professional lifestyles. The working group "Women in Science," which acts as an independent observatory of scientific gender inequalities on campus launched an online survey to assess the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on scientific activity, domestic and caregiving tasks, and psychological status. The survey revealed differences in scientific performance by gender: while male researchers participated in a larger number of scientific activities for career development, female researchers performed more invisible scientific tasks, including peer review or outreach activities. Mental impact was greater in researchers caring for children or dependents, and this was aggravated for women. Results spot a disproportionate impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on female scientific career development, and urges for equity measures to mitigate the consequences of an increase in the gender gap in biomedical sciences for current and future pandemics.

A topic trend analysis on COVID-19 literature

Objective

In the past 2 years, the number of scientific publications has grown exponentially. The COVID-19 outbreak hugely contributed to this dramatic increase in the volume of published research. Currently, text mining of the volume of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 publications is limited to the first months of the outbreak. We aim to identify the major topics in COVID-19 literature collected from several citational sources and analyze the temporal trend from November 2019 to December 2021.

Methods

We performed an extensive literature search on SARS-Cov-2 and COVID-19 publications on PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science (WoS) and a structural topic modelling on the retrieved abstracts. The temporal trend of the recognized topics was analyzed. Furthermore, a comparison between our corpus and the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19) repository was performed.

Results

We collected 269,186 publications and identified 10 topics. The most popular topic was related to the clinical pictures of the COVID-19 outbreak, which has a constant trend, and the least popular includes studies on COVID-19 literature and databases. "Telemedicine", "Vaccine development", and "Epidemiology" were popular topics in the early phase of the pandemic; increasing topics in the last period are "COVID-19 impact on mental health", "Forecasting", and "Molecular Biology". "Education" was the second most popular topic, which emerged in September 2020.

Conclusions

We identified 10 topics for classifying COVID-19 research publications and estimated a nonlinear temporal trend that gives an overview of their unfolding over time. Several citational databases must be searched to retrieve a complete set of studies despite the efforts to build repositories for COVID-19 literature. Our collected data can help build a more focused literature search between November 2019 and December 2021 when carrying out systematic and rapid reviews and our findings can give a complete picture on the topic.

Gender Differences in National Institutes of Health Grant Submissions Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Introduction: Emerging data suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted women in academic medicine, potentially eliminating recent gains that have been made toward gender equity. This study examined possible pandemic-related gender disparities in research grant submissions, one of the most important criteria for academic promotion and tenure evaluations. Methods: Data were collected from two major academic institutions (one private and one public) on the gender and academic rank of faculty principal investigators who submitted new grants to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) during COVID-19 (March 1st, 2020, through August 31, 2020) compared with a matched period in 2019 (March 1st, 2019, through August 31, 2019). t-Tests and chi-square analyses compared the gender distribution of individuals who submitted grants during the two periods of examination. Results: In 2019 (prepandemic), there was no significant difference in the average number of grants submitted by women compared with men faculty. In contrast, women faculty submitted significantly fewer grants in 2020 (during the pandemic) than men. Men were also significantly more likely than women to submit grants in both 2019 and 2020 compared with submitting in 2019 only, suggesting men faculty may have been more likely than their women colleagues to sustain their productivity in grant submissions during the pandemic. Discussion: Women's loss of extramural funding may compound over time, as it impedes new data collection, research progress, and academic advancement. Efforts to support women's research productivity and career trajectories are urgently needed in the following years of pandemic recovery.

The influence of Covid-19 on publications in economics: bibliometric evidence from five working paper series

We compare Covid-related working papers in economics to non-Covid-related working papers in four dimensions. Based on five well-known working papers series and data from the RePEc website, we find that Covid papers mainly cover topics in macroeconomics and health, they are written by larger teams than non-Covid papers, are more often downloaded and they receive more citations relative to non-Covid papers.

Affective diaries of quarantine: Writing as mourning

Challenging the bodily-detached logos qualifying as perfect knowledge in academia, I write here to mourn, driven by a visceral need to speak of vulnerabilities and affects, which continuously become overexposed under the COVID-19 pandemic and the corresponding lockdown periods. My diary notes reflect my affective ambivalences, ambiguities, and contradictions during this time, which I interweave with critical feminist theories on affect and mourning as an emancipating process. In so doing, I propose academic writing as a mourning process with heightened relational, ethical, and esthetic possibilities. Mourning the collateral losses and multi-dimensional vulnerabilities experienced during this pandemic provides, I suggest, a relational language to speak of embodied affects to challenge and resist normative structures oppressing difference and otherness, including the affectively disengaged academic logos. I propose that experiencing academic writing as a mourning process enables us to develop the embodied subjectivities necessary to survive the crises surrounding our lives, which the pandemic has left bare. Doing so motivates a kind optimism necessary for driving desired change, collectively, in academia and in broader society.

Innovating peer review, reconfiguring scholarly communication: an analytical overview of ongoing peer review innovation activities

Purpose

The study aims to provide an analytical overview of current innovations in peer review and their potential impacts on scholarly communication.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors created a survey that was disseminated among publishers, academic journal editors and other organizations in the scholarly communication ecosystem, resulting in a data set of 95 self-defined innovations. The authors ordered the material using a taxonomy that compares innovation projects according to five dimensions. For example, what is the object of review? How are reviewers recruited, and does the innovation entail specific review foci?

Findings

Peer review innovations partly pull in mutually opposed directions. Several initiatives aim to make peer review more efficient and less costly, while other initiatives aim to promote its rigor, which is likely to increase costs; innovations based on a singular notion of “good scientific practice” are at odds with more pluralistic understandings of scientific quality; and the idea of transparency in peer review is the antithesis to the notion that objectivity requires anonymization. These fault lines suggest a need for better coordination.

Originality/value

This paper presents original data that were analyzed using a novel, inductively developed, taxonomy. Contrary to earlier research, the authors do not attempt to gauge the extent to which peer review innovations increase the “reliability” or “quality” of reviews (as defined according to often implicit normative criteria), nor are they trying to measure the uptake of innovations in the routines of academic journals. Instead, they focus on peer review innovation activities as a distinct object of analysis.

History and development of sex- and gender sensitive medicine (SGSM)

Sex- and gender-sensitive medicine has evolved from a feminist approach into an innovative cross-cutting approach to doing medicine. In the present chapter we define what sex and gender are in the context of biomedical research and describe the history of the development of this scientific approach. Looking back at crucial events in the U.S.A., Canada and Europe, we will outline how a structural framework has been established, ready to be filled with clinical and applied knowledge and to change the practice of medicine for decades to come.

Measuring the developmental function of peer review: a multi-dimensional, cross-disciplinary analysis of peer review reports from 740 academic journals

Reviewers do not only help editors to screen manuscripts for publication in academic journals; they also serve to increase the rigor and value of manuscripts by constructive feedback. However, measuring this developmental function of peer review is difficult as it requires fine-grained data on reports and journals without any optimal benchmark. To fill this gap, we adapted a recently proposed quality assessment tool and tested it on a sample of 1.3 million reports submitted to 740 Elsevier journals in 2018-2020. Results showed that the developmental standards of peer review are shared across areas of research, yet with remarkable differences. Reports submitted to social science and economics journals show the highest developmental standards. Reports from junior reviewers, women and reviewers from Western Europe are generally more developmental than those from senior, men and reviewers working in academic institutions outside Western regions. Our findings suggest that increasing the standards of peer review at journals requires effort to assess interventions and measure practices with context-specific and multi-dimensional frameworks.

Cross-sectional study of the relationship between women's representation among editors and peer reviewers in journals of the British Medical Journal Publishing Group

OBJECTIVES

To investigate whether there is an association between women's representation as peer reviewers and editors of medical journals.

METHODS

In this cross-sectional study, the gender of editors and peer reviewers of journals of the British Medical Journal Publishing Group (BMJ-PG) in 2020 was determined based on given names. Trends over time were analysed for the BMJ between 2009 and 2017.

RESULTS

Overall, this study included 47 of the 74 journals in the BMJ-PG. Women accounted for 30.2% of the 42 539 peer reviewers, with marked variation from 8% to 50%. Women represented 33.4% of the 555 editors, including 19.2% of the 52 editors-in-chief. There was a moderate positive correlation between the percentage of women as editors and as reviewers (Spearman correlation coefficient 0.590; p<0.0001). The percentage of women as editors, excluding editors-in-chief, was higher when the editor-in-chief was a woman than a man (53.3% vs 29.2%, respectively; p<0.0001). Likewise, the percentage of women as peer reviewers was higher in journals that had a woman as editor-in-chief in comparison with a man (32.0% vs 26.4%, respectively; p<0.0001). There was a slight increase in the percentage of women as peer reviewers from 27.3% in 2009 to 29.7% in 2017 in the BMJ.

CONCLUSIONS

Women account for less than one in three peer reviewers of medical journals. Women's representation as peer reviewers is higher in journals with higher percentage of women as editors or with a woman as editor-in-chief. It is, thus, imperative to address the persisting gender gap at all levels of the publishing system.

Meta-research: Justifying career disruption in funding applications, a survey of Australian researchers

Background:

When researchers’ careers are disrupted by life events – such as illness or childbirth – they often need to take extended time off. This creates a gap in their research output that can reduce their chances of winning funding. In Australia, applicants can disclose their career disruptions and peer reviewers are instructed to make appropriate adjustments. However, it is not clear if and how applicants use career disruption sections or how reviewers adjust and if they do it consistently.

Methods:

To examine career disruption, we used surveys of the Australian health and medical research community. We used both a random sample of Australian authors on PubMed and a non-random convenience sample.

Results:

Respondents expressed concerns that sharing information on career disruption would harm their chances of being funded, with 13% saying they have medical or social circumstances but would not include it in their application, with concerns about appearing ‘weak’. Women were more reluctant to include disruption. There was inconsistency in how disruption was adjusted for, with less time given for those with depression compared with caring responsibilities, and less time given for those who did not provide medical details of their disruption.

Conclusions:

The current system is likely not adequately adjusting for career disruption and this may help explain the ongoing funding gap for senior women in Australia.

Funding:

National Health and Medical Research Council Senior Research Fellowship (Barnett).

Science is an expensive endeavor. To pursue their ideas, most researchers need to win funding by submitting applications to highly competitive schemes with low success rates. Funding decisions depend on many factors, but usually take into consideration a researcher’s track record: publications, collaborations with other researchers and even other awards they have received.

Researchers whose careers have been disrupted by life events, including childbearing or being ill, may have a gap in their track record that reduces their chances of winning funding. Historically, female researchers have experienced career disruptions more often, leading to a funding gap between male and female researchers. To increase fairness and reduce this gap, many funding agencies have instructed the peer reviewers – other scientists – who assess funding applications to adjust their scores to account for career disruptions. However, large funding gaps are still frequently observed between female and male researchers.

Barnett et al. wanted to know how career disruption is considered in practice by establishing what personal details are shared in applications by researchers with disruption, and how reviewers treat this information. To find out, they surveyed medical researchers in Australia and asked them for their views on career disruption as both funding applicants and reviewers of funding applications.

The answers to the survey indicated that 13% of the applicants responding had experienced career disruptions, but would not include them in funding applications. In many cases, this reluctance to disclose career disruptions was due to concerns that it would harm an applicant’s chances of winning funding, a concern that was greater in the women who responded to the survey. Researchers who answered the survey would claim less time off on average if their career disruption was for severe depression compared with caring for a child or elderly relative. Additionally, the answers to the survey show that, on average, peer reviewers – the scientists who assessed the applications – would give more time off to applicants who provided details about the medical issues that caused a career disruption than to those who did not.

The results of this survey suggest that changes in the systems used to apply for funding and in how applications are assessed could make funding fairer. One suggestion would be to modify funding applications to make disruptions easier to report. Another would be to make changes to the reviewing procedures to increase privacy and reduce variability in how disruption is assessed. Changes in these directions could help researchers gain access to funding more fairly, increasing the quality and output of scientific research.

Was This Supposed to Be on the Test? Academic Leadership, Gender and the COVID-19 Pandemic in Denmark, Hungary, Romania, and United Kingdom

Recent developments in workplace dynamics have made us even more aware of the importance of gender representation in all work-related decisions. Working from home during the pandemic, a decision that was generally the norm for European universities, forced us to rethink what are the main priorities when addressing the different needs of academic workers. The present paper tackles this overall issue from the perspective of gender representation, looking at the gender composition of the leadership structures of universities and their policy responses to employee needs. All the state-accredited universities in the following countries were included in the analysis: Romania, Denmark, Hungary and UK. These countries were chosen for the diversity in the state of their gender politics and in their overall quality of higher education. Primary results show not only that gender equality within academic leadership lags behind, but also that this lag may be associated with a poorer policy response to challenges typically faced by women during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Pandemic as a Portal: Reimagining Psychological Science as Truly Open and Inclusive

Psychological science is at an inflection point: The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequalities that stem from our historically closed and exclusive culture. Meanwhile, reform efforts to change the future of our science are too narrow in focus to fully succeed. In this article, we call on psychological scientists-focusing specifically on those who use quantitative methods in the United States as one context for such conversations-to begin reimagining our discipline as fundamentally open and inclusive. First, we discuss whom our discipline was designed to serve and how this history produced the inequitable reward and support systems we see today. Second, we highlight how current institutional responses to address worsening inequalities are inadequate, as well as how our disciplinary perspective may both help and hinder our ability to craft effective solutions. Third, we take a hard look in the mirror at the disconnect between what we ostensibly value as a field and what we actually practice. Fourth and finally, we lead readers through a roadmap for reimagining psychological science in whatever roles and spaces they occupy, from an informal discussion group in a department to a formal strategic planning retreat at a scientific society.