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What's in a number? How (and why) measuring research productivity in different ways changes the gender gap Open PDF
(2018)
Nygaard, L.P.
;
Bahgat, K.
A persistent finding in studies of research productivity is the ‘gender gap’ where men seem to publish more academic research than women. However, this gap varies widely from study to study, and little has been done to explore how these claims might be sensitive to what is being measured and how. Using a dataset of publications statistics spanning five years for a Norwegian social science research institute, this paper looks at how (and why) measuring productivity in different ways provides different pictures of the gender gap. Based on the situated context of the institute, we also disaggregate the data by staff category, methodological orientation, and language background, and consider the impact of leaves of absence. We find widely varying measures of the gender gap depending on how we measure and disaggregate, and argue that different bibliometric indicators capture different aspects of research performance, including diversity of output and collaboration, which reflect different publication practices that are both gendered and situated. We suggest that looking at academic writing as a situated - and gendered - social practice offers a potential for deriving more theoretically consistent explanations for both the seeming persistence of the gender gap and the wide contextual variations. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd
Scientific Performance Assessments Through a Gender Lens: a Case Study on Evaluation and Selection Practices in Academia
(2018)
Nielsen, Matthias Wullum
The focus on excellence and quality assurance in the academy has spawned a significant increase in the use of bibliometric measures in performance assessments of individual researchers. This article investigates the organizational consequences of this development through a gender lens. Based on a qualitative case study of evaluation and selection practices at a Danish university, a number of potential gender biases related to the use of bibliometric performance measures are identified. By taking as default the research preferences, approaches and career paths of a succesful group of predominantly male scholars, evaluators using bibliometrics risk disadvantaging candidates diverging from the norm with implications for gender stratification. Despite these potential biases, bibliometric measures come to function as technologies supporting a managerial narrative of the gender-blind organization. They adhere to the prevailing ethos of the academic meritocracy by standardizing the criteria for organizational advancement and ensuring transparency and accountability in the selection process. While bibliometric tools in this sense may lead to the recruitment of scientists with a strong CV and track record, they may at the same time prevent many talented researchers diverging from the norm from being recognized and succeed as academics.
Gender inequality and research performance: moving beyond individual-meritocratic explanations of academic advancement Open PDF
(2016)
Nielsen, M.W.
Academic debates addressing the persistent gender gap in science reveal considerable contestation of the relevance and extent of the problem. Particular attention has been given to the question of whether women's high attrition rates should be ascribed to the structural and cultural barriers inherent to the academic system or instead individualistic matters, such as personal motivation, performance and merit. In order to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of this particular issue, this cross-sectional bibliometric study investigates the link between gender and research performance in the Danish context. More specifically, it compares the citation and self-citation rates, source normalized impact per publication scores and collaborative patterns of 3293 male and female researchers at a Danish university and provides evidence challenging the widespread assumption of a persistent performance gap in favour of male researchers. The result has implications for research organizations and managers, as it raises concerns about the validity of individual-meritocratic explanations of the skewed gender distributions in academia. © 2015 Society for Research into Higher Education.
Gender consequences of a national performance-based funding model: new pieces in an old puzzle Open PDF
(2017)
Nielsen, M.W.
This article investigates the extent to which the Danish Bibliometric Research Indicator (BRI) reflects the performance of men and women differently. The model is based on a differentiated counting of peer-reviewed publications, awarding three and eight points for contributions to ‘well-regarded’ and highly selective journals and book publishers, and 1 and 5 points for equivalent scientific contributions via ‘normal level’ channels. On the basis of bibliometric data, the study shows that the BRI considerably widens the existing gender gap in researcher performance, since men on average receive more BRI points for their publications than women. The article suggests two probable explanations: (A) women merely comprise 24% of the committee members determining which publication channels to classify as ‘well-regarded’ and ‘normal’, which may lead to biases in the classification process. (B) The model privileges collaborative research, which disadvantages women due to gender differences in collaborative network relations. © 2015 Society for Research into Higher Education.
Gender bias in female physician assessments: Women considered better suited for qualitative research Open PDF
(2002)
Johansson, E.E.
;
Risberg, G.
;
Hamberg, K.
;
Westman, G.
Objective - To analyse whether physician assessment of scientific quality is biased by gender. Design - Two fictive research abstracts on back pain treatment were constructed, one with a quantitative and one with a qualitative design. Authorship was assigned to either a woman or a man. Subjects - 1637 randomly selected Swedish physicians were asked to judge the scientific quality of the two designs in a structured assessment form. Main outcome measures - The assessments of 1364 abstracts (286 female and 394 male assessors) were analysed by chi-square test and logistic regression. Results - The quantitative design was judged the same, regardless of the gender of the author or assessor. The qualitative design, however, was ranked as more accurate, trustworthy, relevant and interesting with a female author. Women assessors upgraded female authors more than male authors, while male assessors reflected no gender differences. Assessor speciality interacted with judgement; physicians in primary care appreciated the qualitative abstract more than hospital physicians did (OR 2.78; 95% CI 1.97-3.92). Conclusion - Gender seems to affect scientific evaluations. The results are worth considering in situations where research is judged and interpreted, in medical tutoring, research guidance, peer reviewing and certainly in forming evaluation committees for research funding.
Gender, age, and broader impact: A study of persons, not just authors
(2019)
Zhang, L.
;
Du, H.
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Huang, Y.
;
Glänzel, W.
;
Sivertsen, G.
This research-in-progress investigates whether there are differences in terms of traditional citation impact and broader impact (Mendeley, Usage and Social Media) for researchers with different social variables such as age, gender and academic position. To do this, 30,003 journal articles in Web of Science from 2011-2017 with Norwegian first authors that can be identified as persons in two other Norwegian national databases, are selected as our data sample. Among a total of 14,204 identifiable researchers as the first authors, 7,767 (55%) are men and 6,437 (45%) women. Percentile-based indicators of four different impacts are compared among different researcher cohorts. The preliminary results show that although there is a consistent male dominance in traditional citation impact, the dominance is less present in the younger cohorts where females are also better represented. Female researchers score relatively higher on broader impact indicators than on traditional citation impact indicators, sometimes clearly exceeding their male colleagues. The differences already revealed will be further studied by including academic position as another social variable, to better understand the distinct impact characteristics according to age and gender, and to provide new insights for funding and evaluation policy. © 2019 17th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics, ISSI 2019 - Proceedings. All rights reserved.
Publication rate expressed by age, gender and academic position - A large-scale analysis of Norwegian academic staff Open PDF
(2015)
Rørstad, K.
;
Aksnes, D.W.
This study investigates how scientific performance in terms of publication rate is influenced by the gender, age and academic position of the researchers. Previous studies have shown that these factors are important variables when analysing scientific productivity at the individual level. What is new with our approach is that we have been able to identify the relative importance of the different factors based on regression analyses (OLS) of each major academic field. The study, involving almost 12,400 Norwegian university researchers, shows that academic position is more important than age and gender. In the fields analysed, the regression model can explain 13.5-19 per cent of the variance in the publication output at the levels of individuals. This also means that most of the variance in publication rate is due to other factors. © 2015 The Authors.
Constructions of innovation and gender (equality) in Swedish universities Open PDF
(2013)
Rönnblom, M.
;
Keisu, B.-I.
Purpose: This paper utilizes the concept of innovation as a form of methodological starting-point in order to analyse the gendered meanings of marketization in Swedish universities. The purpose of the paper is to scrutinize how the concept of innovation is produced in Swedish universities, and how these versions of innovation are gendered and related to different understandings of gender equality. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis departs from a critical perspective to studies of gender equality and is anchored in a critical policy analysis approach - the "what's the problem represented to be? Approach" developed by Bacchi. This approach is used in the analysis of interviews with top-level leaders at two Swedish universities and how they perceive innovation. The results are related to a governmentality framework in order to explain the gendered innovation discourse in academia. Findings: One of the main results is that innovation is represented in a broad way when discussed at a more abstract level. However, when the discussion becomes more concrete and also related to a gendered understanding of the researchers actually turning their research results into innovations, this broad representation of innovation shrinks. The analysis also shows how a governmentality framework both explains the inevitability of innovation and the difficulties of working for political change for women in the academy. Originality/value: In analysing innovation as produced instead of taken for granted, this article puts forward a critical understanding of innovation, both in relation to gender and to the inevitability of de-politicisation processes of the neo-liberal audit culture in academia. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Effects of scholar's gender and professional position on publishing productivity in different publication types. Analysis of a Finnish university Open PDF
(2010)
Puuska, H.-M.
This paper examines the effects of a scholar's position and gender on publishing productivity in several types of scientific publications: monographs, articles in journals, articles in edited books, and articles in conference proceedings. The data consist of 1,367 scholars who worked at the University of Helsinki, Finland, during the period 2002-2004. The analysis shows that professors are the most productive, PhDs publish more than non-PhDs, and men perform better than women, also when other scholarly characteristics are controlled for. These differences are greater for monographs and articles in edited books than for articles in journals. In terms of conference proceedings, no remarkable productivity differences were found. © 2009 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary.
Academic leadership in the Nordic countries: Patterns of gender equality
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)
Pinheiro, R.
;
Geschwind, L.
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Hansen, H.F.
;
Pekkola, E.
It is widely acknowledged that the Nordic countries rank highly when it comes to the role of women in the labor market. Equality of opportunity on gender grounds has been a central topic in the labor policy agendas of many Nordic governments since the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Notwithstanding this trend, studies reveal that there are still substantial gender imbalances in the academic profession, most notably when it comes to representation at the highest levels of the organization (institutional governance) and/or academic status. Thus, the rationale for this chapter is to take critical stock, both quantitatively and qualitatively, of the role of women in Nordic academia — Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland — with a special emphasis on their role at the highest governance and managerial levels. The chapter has three major aims. First, it will illuminate the key figures (official statistics and authors’ own data) regarding the gender split throughout the academic career path, as well as female representation in university senior management. Second, it will provide a comparison of policies — at the macro (government) and meso (case institutions) levels — aimed at reducing the gender gap within Nordic academia. Third, it will cast a critical light — by drawing upon new qualitative datasets — on the backgrounds and experiences of a number of senior female leaders at selected case institutions, with a particular emphasis on career trajectories and structural and cultural barriers.

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