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Author: search.filters.author.Larivière, VincentViewpoints: search.filters.viewpoints.Peer Review System

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  • Item type:Publication,
    Gender differences in submission behavior exacerbate publication disparities in elite journals Open PDF 
    (eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd, 2026-02-20)
    Ni, Chaoqun
    ;
    Basson, Isabel
    ;
    Badia, Giovanna
    ;
    Tufenkji, Nathalie
    ;
    Sugimoto, Cassidy R
    Women are particularly underrepresented as leading authors of papers in journals of the highest impact factor, with substantial consequences for their careers. While a large body of research has focused on the outcome and the process of peer review, fewer articles have explicitly focused on gendered submission behavior and the explanations for these differences. In our study of nearly 5000 active authors, we find that women are less likely to report having submitted papers to journals of the highest impact (e.g., Science, Nature, or PNAS) and to submit fewer manuscripts, on average, than men when they do submit. Women were more likely to indicate that they did not submit their papers (in general and their subsequently most cited papers) to high-impact journals because they were advised not to. In the aggregate, no statistically significant difference was observed between men and women in how they rated the quality of their work. Nevertheless, regardless of discipline, women were more likely than men to indicate that their 'work was not ground-breaking or sufficiently novel' as a rationale for not submitting to one of the listed prestigious journals. Men were more likely than women to indicate that the 'work would fit better in a more specialized journal'. We discuss the implications of these findings and interventions that can serve to mitigate the disparities caused by gendered differences in submission behavior.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Author-Reviewer Homophily in Peer Review
    (bioRxiv, 2019)
    Murray, Dakota
    ;
    Siler, Kyle
    ;
    Larivière, Vincent
    ;
    Chan, Wei Mun
    ;
    Collings, Andrew M.
    The fairness of scholarly peer review has been challenged by evidence of disparities in publication outcomes based on author demographic characteristics. To assess this, we conducted an exploratory analysis of peer review outcomes of 23,876 initial submissions and 7,192 full submissions that were submitted to the biosciences journal eLife between 2012 and 2017. Women and authors from nations outside of North America and Europe were underrepresented both as gatekeepers (editors and peer reviewers) and authors. We found evidence of a homophilic relationship between the demographics of the gatekeepers and authors and the outcome of peer review; that is, there were higher rates of acceptance in the case of gender and country homophily. The acceptance rate for manuscripts with male last authors was seven percent, or 3.5 percentage points, greater than for female last authors (95% CI = [0.5, 6.4]); this gender inequity was greatest, at nine percent or about 4.8 percentage points (95% CI = [0.3, 9.1]), when the team of reviewers was all male; this difference was smaller and not significantly different for mixed-gender reviewer teams. Homogeny between countries of the gatekeeper and the corresponding author was also associated with higher acceptance rates for many countries. To test for the persistence of these effects after controlling for potentially confounding variables, we conducted a logistic regression including document and author metadata. Disparities in acceptance rates associated with gender and country of affiliation and the homophilic associations remained. We conclude with a discussion of mechanisms that could contribute to this effect, directions for future research, and policy implications. Code and anonymized data have been made available at https://github.com/murrayds/elife-analysis Author summary Peer review, the primary method by which scientific work is evaluated, is ideally a fair and equitable process in which scientific work is judged solely on its own merit. However, the integrity of peer review has been called into question based on evidence that outcomes often differ between male and female authors, and for authors in different countries. We investigated such disparities at the biosciences journal eLife by analyzing the demographics of authors and gatekeepers (editors and peer reviewers), and peer review outcomes of all submissions between 2012 and 2017. Outcomes were more favorable for male authors and those affiliated with institutions in North America and Europe; these groups were also over-represented among gatekeepers. There was evidence that peer review outcomes were influenced by homophily —a preference of gatekeepers for manuscripts from authors with shared characteristics. We discuss mechanisms that could contribute to this effect, directions for future research, and policy implications.