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Women in Science. Experiences of Academics in Switzerland
(Transcript, 2025-08-12)
De Cia Annalisa
;
Hellmüller, Sara
;
Mesok Khan, Elizabeth
Women in science face particular challenges, such as structural inequalities, highly competitive work environments, and at times toxic cultures. This collection conveys the experiences of women academics in Switzerland, featuring insights from twelve scholars across various universities and disciplines. Each contributor shares their unique journey in pursuit of a professorship, illustrating the rich diversity of the Swiss scientific community. This volume offers hope for those struggling with finding their place in science, emphasizing the joys and privileges that can be found in an academic career and the passion and perseverance of those pursuing it.
Identifying gender disparities in research performance: the importance of comparing apples with apples Open PDF
(2022)
Nygaard, L.P.
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Aksnes, D.W.
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Piro, F.N.
Many studies on research productivity and performance suggest that men consistently outperform women. However, women and men are spread unevenly throughout the academy both horizontally (e.g., by scientific field) and vertically (e.g., by academic position), suggesting that aggregate numbers (comparing all men with all women) may reflect the different publication practices in different corners of the academy rather than gender per se. We use Norwegian bibliometric data to examine how the “what” (which publication practices are measured) and the “who” (how the population sample is disaggregated) matter in assessing apparent gender differences among academics in Norway. We investigate four clusters of indicators related to publication volume, publication type, authorship, and impact or quality (12 indicators in total) and explore how disaggregating the population by scientific field, institutional affiliation, academic position, and age changes the gender gaps that appear at the aggregate level. For most (but not all) indicators, we find that gender differences disappear or are strongly reduced after disaggregation. This suggests a composition effect, whereby apparent gender differences in productivity can to a considerable degree be ascribed to the composition of the group examined and the different publication practices common to specific groups. We argue that aggregate figures can exaggerate some gender disparities while obscuring others. Our study illustrates the situated nature of research productivity and the importance of comparing men and women within similar academic positions or scientific fields—of comparing apples with apples—when using bibliometric indicators to identify gender disparities in research productivity. © 2022, The Author(s).
Gender aspect of international academic mobility of Russian scientists
(2019)
Malakhov, V.A.
This paper examines to what extent the participation of Russian researchers in international academic mobility vary by gender. Based on the analysis of bibliometric data of the Web of Science system (2008—2017) we identified more than 3000 Russian researchers participating in the international scientific migration. This includes both researchers permanently working abroad and scientists working outside of Russia temporarily. All scientists were sorted by their science research focus and the country of residence (permanent or temporal). A gender analysis was carried out for the resulting database. The results of the analysis showed that academic world of female scientists is less international than that of their male colleagues. Women are especially underrepresented in STEM disciplines, but even in the social sciences and humanities the share of women among researchers working abroad is less than among scientists who have stayed in Russia. The low level of participation of women in international academic mobility is due to the asymmetric distribution of family obligations at later career stages, as well as the low representation of women researchers in STEM disciplines, and it is Russian STEM-researchers (especially physics and mathematics) who are most in demand on the international labor market. The paper argues that it is necessary to improve support programs for international academic mobility, as well as create mechanisms aimed at encouraging women to pursue academic careers. © 2019 Ivanovo State University Publishing. All rights reserved.
Gender bias in academia: A lifetime problem that needs solutions Open PDF
(2021)
Llorens, Anaïs
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Tzovara, Athina
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Bellier, Ludovic
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Bhaya-Grossman, Ilina
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Bidet-Caulet, Aurélie
Despite increased awareness of the lack of gender equity in academia and a growing number of initiatives to address issues of diversity, change is slow, and inequalities remain. A major source of inequity is gender bias, which has a substantial negative impact on the careers, work-life balance, and mental health of underrepresented groups in science. Here, we argue that gender bias is not a single problem but manifests as a collection of distinct issues that impact researchers’ lives. We disentangle these facets and propose concrete solutions that can be adopted by individuals, academic institutions, and society.
Historical comparison of gender inequality in scientific careers across countries and disciplines Open PDF
(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2020)
Huang, Junming
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Gates, Alexander J.
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Sinatra, Roberta
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Barabási, Albert-László
There is extensive, yet fragmented, evidence of gender differences in academia suggesting that women are underrepresented in most scientific disciplines and publish fewer articles throughout a career, and their work acquires fewer citations. Here, we offer a comprehensive picture of longitudinal gender differences in performance through a bibliometric analysis of academic publishing careers by reconstructing the complete publication history of over 1.5 million gender-identified authors whose publishing career ended between 1955 and 2010, covering 83 countries and 13 disciplines. We find that, paradoxically, the increase of participation of women in science over the past 60 years was accompanied by an increase of gender differences in both productivity and impact. Most surprisingly, though, we uncover two gender invariants, finding that men and women publish at a comparable annual rate and have equivalent career-wise impact for the same size body of work. Finally, we demonstrate that differences in publishing career lengths and dropout rates explain a large portion of the reported career-wise differences in productivity and impact, although productivity differences still remain. This comprehensive picture of gender inequality in academia can help rephrase the conversation around the sustainability of women’s careers in academia, with important consequences for institutions and policy makers.
Bibliometric studies on gender disparities in science
(2019)
Halevi, G.
Understanding gender related disparities in science is an essential step in tackling these issues. Through the years, bibliometric studies have designed several methodologies to analyze scholarly output and demonstrate that there are significant gaps between men and women in the scientific arena. However, gender identification in itself is an enormous challenge, since bibliographic data does not reveal it. These bibliometric studies not only focused on publication output and impact, but also on cross-referencing output, promotions and tenure data, and other related curriculum vitae (CV) information. This chapter discusses the challenges of tracking gender disparities in science through bibliometrics and reviews the various approaches taken by bibliometricians to identify gender and analyze the bibliographic data in order to point to gender disparities in science. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019.
COVID-19 Threatens Progress Toward Gender Equity Within Academic Medicine Open PDF
(2021)
Woitowich, Nicole C.
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Jain, Shikha
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Arora, Vineet M.
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Joffe, Hadine
Women remain underrepresented within academic medicine despite past and present efforts to promote gender equity. The authors discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic could stymie progress toward gender parity within the biomedical workforce and limit the retention and advancement of women in science and medicine. Women faculty face distinct challenges as they navigate the impact of shelter-in-place and social distancing on work and home life. An unequal division of household labor and family care between men and women means women faculty are vulnerable to inequities that may develop in the workplace as they strive to maintain academic productivity and professional development without adequate assistance with domestic tasks and family care. Emerging data suggest that gender differences in academic productivity may be forthcoming as a direct result of the pandemic. Existing gender inequities in professional visibility, networking, and collaboration may be exacerbated as activities transition from in-person to virtual environments and create new barriers to advancement. Meanwhile, initiatives designed to promote gender equity within academic medicine may lose key funding due to the economic impact of COVID-19 on higher education. To ensure that the gender gap within academic medicine does not widen, the authors call upon academic leaders and the broader biomedical community to support women faculty through deliberate actions that promote gender equity, diversity, and inclusion. The authors provide several recommendations, including faculty needs assessments; review of gender bias within tenure-clock-extension offers; more opportunities for mentorship, sponsorship, and professional recognition; and financial commitments to support equity initiatives. Leadership for these efforts should be at the institutional and departmental levels, and leaders should ensure a gender balance on task forces and committees to avoid overburdening women faculty with additional service work. Together, these strategies will contribute to the development of a more equitable workforce capable of transformative medical discovery and care.
Underrepresentation of women in the senior levels of Brazilian science Open PDF
(PeerJ Inc., 2017)
Valentova, Jaroslava V.
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Otta, Emma
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Silva, Maria Luisa
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McElligott, Alan G.
Despite significant progress, there is still a gender gap in science all over the world, especially at senior levels. Some progressive countries are recognizing the need to address barriers to gender equality in order to retain their best scientists and innovators, and ensure research excellence and social and economic returns on the investment made by taxpayers each year on training women scientists. We investigated the gender distribution of: (i) the productivity scholarship (PS) holders of the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, CNPq, N = 13,625), (ii) the members of the Brazilian Academy of Science (Academia Brasileira de Ciências, ABC, N = 899), and (iii) the amount of funding awarded for top quality research (“Universal” Call of CNPq, N = 3,836), between the years of 2013 and 2014. Our findings show evidence for gender imbalances in all the studied indicators of Brazilian science. We found that female scientists were more often represented among PS holders at the lower levels of the research ranking system (2). By contrast, male scientists were more often found at higher levels (1A and 1B) of PS holders, indicating the top scientific achievement, both in “Engineering, Exact Sciences, Earth Sciences”, and “Life Sciences”. This imbalance was not found in Humanities and Social Sciences. Only 14% of the ABC members were women. Humanities and Applied Social Sciences had a relatively low representation of women in the Academy (3.7%) compared to Engineering, Exact and Earth Sciences: 54.9% and Life Sciences: 41.4%. Finally, female scientists obtained significantly more funding at the lower level of the research ranking system (2), whereas male scientists obtained significantly more funding at the higher levels (1A and 1B). Our results show strong evidence of a gender imbalance in Brazilian science. We hope that our findings will be used to stimulate reforms that will result in greater equality in Brazilian science, and elsewhere.
Greater female first author citation advantages do not associate with reduced or reducing gender disparities in academia Open PDF
(2020)
Thelwall, M.
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Sud, P.
Ongoing problems attracting women into many Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects have many potential explanations. This article investigates whether the possible undercitation of women associates with lower proportions of, or increases in, women in a subject. It uses six million articles published in 1996–2012 across up to 331 fields in six mainly English-speaking countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The proportion of female first-and last-authored articles in each year was calculated and 4,968 regressions were run to detect first-author gender advantages in field normalized article citations. The proportion of female first authors in each field correlated highly between countries and the female first-author citation advantages derived from the regressions correlated moderately to strongly between countries, so both are relatively field specific. There was a weak tendency in the United States and New Zealand for female citation advantages to be stronger in fields with fewer women, after excluding small fields, but there was no other association evidence. There was no evidence of female citation advantages or disadvantages to be a cause or effect of changes in the proportions of women in a field for any country. Inappropriate uses of career-level citations are a likelier source of gender inequities. © 2020 Mike Thelwall and Pardeep Sud. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
Mid-career field switches reduce gender disparities in academic publishing Open PDF
(2020)
Thelwall, M.
The continuing low proportions of women in most STEM fields in many countries is an ongoing concern, with no agreement about the fundamental causes or effective remedial actions. One previous study has found that professional women are more likely to switch from a (not necessarily academic) STEM career than professional women in comparable non-STEM jobs, reducing the overall numbers of STEM women. This study investigates whether the same is true for long term academics, and hence could partly account for current gender disparities. Based on the Scopus subject categories of the first and last five publications 2001–2018 of people in 31 countries with publishing careers starting after 2000, female researchers switching fields mid-career tend to move to fields with fewer women, relative to men switching fields mid-career. Thus, mid-career field changes within academia do not help to explain continuing gender disparities in publishing and other explanations must be sought. © 2020, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary.

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