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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).
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
Citations In Economics: Measurement, Uses, and Impacts Open PDF
(2018)
Hamermesh, Daniel S.
I describe and compare sources of data on citations in economics and the statistics derived from them. Constructing data sets of the post-publication citation histories of articles published in the “top five” journals in the 1970s and 2000s, I examine distributions and life cycles of citations, compare citation histories of articles in different subspecialties in economics, and present evidence on the history and heterogeneity of those journals' impacts and the marginal citation productivity of additional coauthors. I use a new data set of the lifetime citation histories of over 1,000 economists from thirty universities to rank economics departments by various measures and demonstrate the importance of intra- and interdepartmental heterogeneity in productivity. Throughout, the discussion summarizes earlier work, including the impacts of citations on salaries and nonmonetary rewards, and how citations reflect judgments about research quality in economics and the importance of economic ideas. (JEL A14, I23)
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.
Excellence and gender equality policies in neoliberal universities
(2017)
Riegraf, B.
;
Weber, L.
The historical nexus of academia and gender has been characterised by exclusivity. The classical idea of innovative science was shaped by male scientists and refl ected their ways of living and was mainly reproduced via gatekeeping and homosocial co-optation processes. Recently, academia has begun a transition towards a new model of academic organisation and governance represented by the vision of the 'neoliberal university'. In this transition the historical nexus between academic 'excellence' and masculine culture is being called into question by new economic mechanisms and instruments of academic governance that are declared to be 'gender neutral' and 'transparent'. In fact, some studies show that management by performance disadvantages female academics by favouring male patronage, but with the instruments of the new governance gender equality can also be introduced as a core principle of excellence criteria, as happened in the case of the German excellence initiative. On the basis of two case studies of German universities, our contribution shows how the nexus between 'excellence' competition and masculine culture is eroding, partly due to new 'quasi'-market mechanisms being combined with gender equality policies. Our fi ndings shed light on new gendered work patterns and inequalities of contemporary academia. Academia is opening up to 'excellent' high-performance women, while other women are still disadvantaged. © Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences, 2017.
Gender and Precarious Research Careers: A Comparative Analysis
(Routledge, 2018)
Poggio, Barbara
;
Murgia, Annalisa.
The literature on gender and science shows that scientific careers continue to be characterised – albeit with important differences among countries – by strong gender discriminations, especially in more prestigious positions. Much less investigated is the issue of which stage in the career such differences begin to show up. Gender and Precarious Research Careers aims to advance the debate on the process of precarisation in higher education and its gendered effects, and springs from a three-year research project across institutions in seven European countries: Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Iceland, Switzerland, Slovenia and Austria. Examining gender asymmetries in academic and research organisations, this insightful volume focuses particularly on early careers. It centres both on STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and SSH (Social Science and Humanities) fields. Offering recommendations to design innovative organisational policies and self-tailored ‘Gender Equality Plans’ to be implemented in universities and research centres, this volume will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as Gender Studies, Sociology of Work and Industry, Sociology of Knowledge, Business Studies and Higher Education.
Gender and research publishing analyzed through the lenses of discipline, institution types, impact and international collaboration: a case study from India Open PDF
(2020)
Paswan, J.
;
Singh, V.K.
Higher participation of women in higher education and research is a very important development goal in many countries across the world, with several countries creating special initiatives and schemes to increase participation of women in higher education and research. This article looks at a case study from India and aims to characterize the participation of women in research, by analysing the parameters of institution-type, discipline, citation impact and international collaboration. Research publication data from 50 most productive Indian institutions, along with data for 5 major institution systems, for a period of 10 years (2008–2017), as indexed in Web of Science, is obtained as sample data and analysed. Results obtained show that participation of women is found to vary in different disciplines, with biology (37%), agriculture science (32%), social science (31%) and medical science (32%) having relatively higher number of female 1st authored papers as compared to engineering (20%), information science (21%) and mathematics (22%). It is also observed that institutions specializing in medical sciences and social science have relatively better participation of women. In terms of location of institution in a big metropolitan city or an urban area, it was found that there do not exist any significant differentiation in levels of participation of women in research between institutions located in bigger cities or smaller towns. Further, analysis of citation and collaboration patterns show that though male authored papers have an edge in citation impact, women researchers get more internationally collaborated papers. © 2020, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary.
Trends in authorship by women at Canadian universities 2006 to 2019 Open PDF
(Canadian Association for Information Science - Association canadienne des sciences de l'information, 2021)
Demaine, Jeffrey
Despite much progress since the mid-20th century, there still exists a disparity in the number of female academics relative to their male colleagues. This gender gap has come under increased focus as universities take steps to foster diversity and inclusiveness. Bibliometrics can provide a window into the gender disparity in research by measuring the metadata of academic publications. By determining the ratio of female to male authors, the gender bias at the level of the institution can be quantified. This study examines the proportion of female authors of academic articles at thirty Canadian universities across five broad fields of research.
Diversity of backgrounds and ideas: The case of research evaluation in economics Open PDF
(2019)
Corsi, Marcella
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D’Ippoliti, Carlo
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Zacchia, Giulia
This paper contributes to the literature on the effect of research evaluation in terms of preserving and reproducing diversity. Through a large-scale natural experiment encompassing two entire cohorts of Italian economists, we document how candidates for academic positions, especially top-tier positions, in economics are pushed to increasingly conform to a standardised research profile. We find evidence of gender bias in research evaluation and observe substantial variability in the chances of qualifying for an academic position, depending on candidates’ main fields, topics and methods of research. Our results also indicate that economists working on less popular research fields and/or with heterodox methods are less likely to qualify for top-tier academic positions, independently of their bibliometric indicators.

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