Action plan to eliminate gender bias from research publishing
We are calling on all scientific publishers to join us in transparently reporting gender statistics in a move towards equality in research and academia.
This follows a detailed analysis of over 700,000 research papers which showed that women face subtle barriers at each step of the publication process.
Last year, we embarked on our groundbreaking Diversity landscape of the chemical sciences and Breaking the Barriers campaign to smash down the inequalities faced in the chemical sciences community. Following on from this work, we analysed more than 700,000 manuscript submissions and 141,000 citations in our journals to see whether there are any biases occurring within our publication processes.
We found that rather than any one single barrier, women have to overcome subtle barriers at every stage of the process from submission to citation. While in isolation they might seem relatively minor, together they combine to put women at a significant professional disadvantage – since publishing impactful papers can make or break a researcher’s career.
Read the report
Among the findings, the analysis showed:
- 35.8% of RSC authors were women
- 23.9% of submissions are by female corresponding authors – this is the most senior position on a paper
- 18.4% of RSC citations have a corresponding author who is a woman
- Women are much less likely to be the sole author of a paper, representing 19.6% of single authorship papers submitted
- More articles from male lead authors are recommended for acceptance or minor revisions than from women
- Women are more likely to have an article rejected without peer review
- Male reviewers are more likely to recommend ‘reject’ for submissions from female lead authors than male lead authors.
Announcing a new plan to drive change in research culture, our director of publishing Dr Emma Wilson said: “Everyone involved – from our staff to our valued reviewers and editors – make huge efforts to ensure that the peer review process is fair and based on scientific merit alone. But it’s only by looking at real data from the publishing processes that we can identify where systemic issues may be.
“We were surprised by some of the findings, which included a number of cases where women said they felt less confident of submitting to a journal because they feel they might not meet the criteria for publication, while men may be more likely to take the risk.
“While these issues don’t just apply to the chemical sciences, as an organisation there is absolutely no point telling others they need to change unless you’re willing to do so yourself. In analysing our journal peer review processes, committing to increase female representation within the publication process and annually reporting on our progress toward gender equality, we are aiming to raise the bar.
“Our challenge to all those in the research ecosystem, from universities to research departments and private companies, is to follow our lead and take an objective look at themselves, as it’s going to take everyone working together to make a difference.”
The Royal Society of Chemistry has committed to:
- Increase transparency by annually publishing an analysis of authors, reviewers and editorial decision-makers by journal sub-discipline, and we are calling on other publishers to do the same
- More closely reflect the research community by recruiting and training reviewers, editorial board members and associate editors to reflect the current gender balance of the research community: our target is at least 36% women by 2022
- Empower and innovate by providing new training and resources for editors to eliminate bias covering submission to publication. We will also investigate new publishing models, such as double blind review and open peer review
- Encourage intervention by partnering with other organisations and leading the development of a new Inclusion and Diversity Framework for Action to set the standard for driving change throughout the academic publishing industry
Dr Wilson concludes: “The quality of the science will always remain the main criterion for publication, but in publishing our action plan, we are determined to ensure the chemical science community fairly rewards and retains a more diverse range of voices. We strongly believe this will lead to better science – and by extension this will benefit wider society as a whole.”