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Advancing gender equality through the Athena SWAN Charter for Women in Science: An exploratory study of women's and men's perceptions Open PDF
(BioMed Central Ltd., 2017)
Ovseiko, P.V.
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Chapple, A.
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Edmunds, L.D.
;
Ziebland, S.
Background: While in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia, higher education and research institutions are widely engaged with the Athena SWAN Charter for Women in Science to advance gender equality, empirical research on this process and its impact is rare. This study combined two data sets (free- text comments from a survey and qualitative interviews) to explore the range of experiences and perceptions of participation in Athena SWAN in medical science departments of a research-intensive university in Oxford, United Kingdom. Methods: The study is based on the secondary analysis of data from two projects: 59 respondents to an anonymous online survey (42 women, 17 men) provided relevant free-text comments and, separately, 37 women participated in face-to-face narrative interviews. Free-text survey comments and narrative interviews were analysed thematically using constant comparison. Results: Both women and men said that participation in Athena SWAN had brought about important structural and cultural changes, including increased support for women's careers, greater appreciation of caring responsibilities, and efforts to challenge discrimination and bias. Many said that these positive changes would not have happened without linkage of Athena SWAN to government research funding, while others thought there were unintended consequences. Concerns about the programme design and implementation included a perception that Athena SWAN has limited ability to address longstanding and entrenched power and pay imbalances, persisting lack of work-life balance in academic medicine, questions about the sustainability of positive changes, belief that achieving the award could become an end in itself, resentment about perceived positive discrimination, and perceptions that further structural and cultural changes were needed in the university and wider society. Conclusions: The findings from this study suggest that Athena SWAN has a positive impact in advancing gender equality, but there may be limits to how much it can improve gender equality without wider institutional and societal changes. To address the fundamental causes of gender inequality would require cultural change and welfare state policies incentivising men to increase their participation in unpaid work in the family, which is beyond the scope of higher education and research policy. © 2017 The Author(s).
Being a female academic under neoliberal evaluation: A systematic review
(2021)
Mula-Flacón, J.
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Cruz-González, C.
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Segovia, J.D.
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Rodríguez, C.L.
The current academic assessment system is drawing a scenario based on neoliberal values. It has contributed to the perpetuation of gender inequalities. This systematic literature review aims to synthesize the most relevant research on the impact of neoliberalism on the professional identity of female academics. For this purpose, a systematized bibliographic search was carried out in four different databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Education Resources Information Center, and Google Scholar), which yielded a total of 26 articles published in international journals. The results illustrate a research field dominated by the USA and the UK and a trajectory of growth in the literature in recent years. The emerging themes reveal some of the challenges faced by women academics in a neoliberal context. These obstacles may be external and even unconsciously imposed by women academics themselves. Motherhood emerges as one of the most influential aspects of their professional development. Furthermore, our findings explore various ways in which women academics reconstruct their identity in the face of systemic challenges. This manuscript culminates with a discussion of the impact that neoliberal values and their general consequences in the performance evaluation processes of academics have on women. Therefore, we provide a number of implications for professional practice and future lines of research. © 2021 The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.
The influence of first author sex on acceptance rates of submissions to Anaesthesia Cases. Open PDF
(2019)
Laycock, H.
;
Bailey, C. R.
More than 50% of medical students and 45% of practising doctors are female in the UK. In the specialty of anaesthesia, 32% of consultants are female. However, compared with males, females are under-represented as authors of articles published in high-impact journals. We investigated the proportion of female first authors by examining the case reports submitted to Anaesthesia Cases since its inception in 2013. We defined authors by their sex (male or female), that is, biological characteristics, rather than their gender. There were a total of 802 submissions to Anaesthesia Cases over 4.5 years. Sixteen submissions were excluded and of the remaining 786 submissions, 279 were accepted and 507 rejected, an acceptance rate of 35.5%. Twenty (2.5%) authors' sex could not be identified. The overall proportion of female first authors was 37.1%. The proportion of female first authors of accepted case reports was 42.1% and females were first authors of rejected case reports in 34.4%. We found that, compared with previous studies on female sex and gender bias in publishing, there was a relatively high proportion of female first authors publishing in Anaesthesia Cases and female first authors were more likely to be accepted than male first authors. Authorship is considered to reflect career success and there continues to be sex/gender inequity that must be tackled at all levels, from application to medical school, through research funding, journals and Editorial Boards.
A systematic analysis of UK cancer research funding by gender of primary investigator Open PDF
(British Medical Journal Publishing Group Section: Health policy, 2018)
Zhou, Charlie D.
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Head, Michael G.
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Marshall, Dominic C.
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Gilbert, Barnabas J.
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El-Harasis, Majd A.
Objectives To categorically describe cancer research funding in the UK by gender of primary investigator (PIs). Design Systematic analysis of all open-access data. Methods Data about public and philanthropic cancer research funding awarded to UK institutions between 2000 and 2013 were obtained from several sources. Fold differences were used to compare total investment, award number, mean and median award value between male and female PIs. Mann-Whitney U tests were performed to determine statistically significant associations between PI gender and median grant value. Results Of the studies included in our analysis, 2890 (69%) grants with a total value of £1.82 billion (78%) were awarded to male PIs compared with 1296 (31%) grants with a total value of £512 million (22%) awarded to female PIs. Male PIs received 1.3 times the median award value of their female counterparts (P<0.001). These apparent absolute and relative differences largely persisted regardless of subanalyses. Conclusions We demonstrate substantial differences in cancer research investment awarded by gender. Female PIs clearly and consistently receive less funding than their male counterparts in terms of total investment, the number of funded awards, mean funding awarded and median funding awarded.
The landscape for women leaders in dental education, research, and practice Open PDF
(2015)
Whelton, Helen
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Wardman, Margaret J.
Following early limitations on women becoming educated in and practicing dentistry, the proportion of women enrolled in dental schools around the world has increased dramatically over the past decades. Dental schools have undergone a transformation from male dominance to almost equal numbers in the United States and female predominance in other countries including the United Kingdom. However, this change in student gender distribution has not been matched among academic leaders. Data from across the globe indicate a clear disproportion in favor of males in leadership positions in dentistry-and the more senior the position, the greater the imbalance. This article reviews the evolving changes in gender distribution across the landscape of dental education, research, and practice and some initiatives to address the gender imbalance in leadership. Such initiatives can help to ensure that, in the future, the profession benefits from the spectrum of influences brought to bear by the leadership of both women and men.
Equity for excellence in academic institutions: a manifesto for change Open PDF
(2021)
Wedekind, Lauren
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Noé, Andrés
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Mokaya, Jolynne
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Tamandjou, Cynthia
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Kapulu, Melissa
Higher academic institutions in the UK need to drive improvements in equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) through sustainable practical interventions. A broad view of inclusivity is based on an intersectional approach that considers race, geographical location, caring responsibilities, disability, neurodiversity, religion, and LGBTQIA+ identities. We describe the establishment of a diverse stakeholder group to develop practical grass-roots recommendations through which improvements can be advanced. We have developed a manifesto for change, comprising six domains through which academic institutions can drive progress through setting short, medium, and long-term priorities. Interventions will yield rewards in recruitment and retention of a diverse talent pool, leading to enhanced impact and output.
Do bibliometrics introduce gender, institutional or interdisciplinary biases into research evaluations? Open PDF
(2023)
Thelwall, M.
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Kousha, K.
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Stuart, E.
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Makita, M.
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Abdoli, M.
Systematic evaluations of publicly funded research sometimes use bibliometrics alone or bibliometric-informed peer review, but it is not known whether bibliometrics introduce biases when supporting or replacing peer review. This article assesses this by comparing three alternative mechanisms for scoring 73,612 UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) journal articles from all 34 field-based Units of Assessment (UoAs) 2014–17: REF peer review scores, field normalised citations, and journal average field normalised citation impact. The results suggest that in almost all academic fields, bibliometric scoring can disadvantage departments publishing high quality research, as judged by peer review, with the main exception of article citation rates in chemistry. Thus, introducing journal or article level citation information into peer review exercises may have a regression to the mean effect. Bibliometric scoring slightly advantaged women compared to men, but this varied between UoAs and was most evident in the physical sciences, engineering, and social sciences. In contrast, interdisciplinary research gained from bibliometric scoring in about half of the UoAs, but relatively substantially in two. In conclusion, out of the three potential sources of bibliometric bias examined, the most serious seems to be the tendency for bibliometric scores to work against high quality departments, assuming that the peer review scores are correct. This is almost a paradox: although high quality departments tend to get the highest bibliometric scores, bibliometrics conceal the full extent of departmental quality advantages, as judged by peer review. This should be considered when using bibliometrics or bibliometric informed peer review. © 2023 The Authors
Do females create higher impact research? Scopus citations and Mendeley readers for articles from five countries Open PDF
(2018)
Thelwall, M.
There are known gender imbalances in participation in scientific fields, from female dominance of nursing to male dominance of mathematics. It is not clear whether there is also a citation imbalance, with some claiming that male-authored research tends to be more cited. No previous study has assessed gender differences in the readers of academic research on a large scale, however. In response, this article assesses whether there are gender differences in the average citations and/or Mendeley readers of academic publications. Field normalised logged Scopus citations and Mendeley readers from mid-2018 for articles published in 2014 were investigated for articles with first authors from India, Spain, Turkey, the UK and the USA in up to 251 fields with at least 50 male and female authors. Although female-authored research is less cited in Turkey (-4.0%) and India (-3.6%), it is marginally more cited in Spain (0.4%), the UK (0.4%), and the USA (0.2%). Female-authored research has fewer Mendeley readers in India (-1.1%) but more in Spain (1.4%), Turkey (1.1%), the UK (2.7%) and the USA (3.0%). Thus, whilst there may be little practical gender difference in citation impact in countries with mature science systems, the higher female readership impact suggests a wider audience for female-authored research. The results also show that the conclusions from a gender analysis depend on the field normalisation method. A theoretically informed decision must therefore be made about which normalisation to use. The results also suggest that arithmetic mean-based field normalisation is favourable to males. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Does Gender Bias Still Affect Women in Science? Open PDF
(2019)
Roper, Rachel L.
The percentage of women employed in professional scientific positions has been low but is increasing over time. The U.S. National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation have both implemented programs to improve women's participation in science, and many universities and companies have diversity and equity programs. While most faculty and scientists believe that they are fair and unbiased, numerous well-designed studies published in leading peer-reviewed journals show that gender bias in sciences and medicine is widespread and persistent today in both faculty and students. Recent studies show that gender bias affects student grading, professional hiring, mentoring, tenure, promotion, respect, grant proposal success, and pay. In addition, sexual harassment remains a significant barrier. Fortunately, several studies provide evidence that programs that raise conscious awareness of gender bias can improve equity in science, and there are a number of recommendations and strategies for improving the participation of women.
21st century gender trends of authorship in the British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Open PDF
(2022)
Reeves, Samuel
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Loke, Wee Lee
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Mullerat-Pigem, Maria
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Patel, Dhruvi
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Brennan, Peter A.
Despite forming the majority in undergraduate medicine and dentistry programmes, females remain under-represented in all surgical specialties, including oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMFS). Efforts are ongoing to promote female uptake in surgery. Research output is a key metric in measuring leadership and academic advancement within a specialty. The aim of this study was to assess female authorship in research published in the British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery from 2000-2020 with a retrospective cohort study of original articles and reviews published in the journal from five different volumes of the journal (2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020 as representative time points). The gender of the first and last authors were assessed for gender by first name recognition and verified with a web-search of the author using their stated institutional affiliation when this was not clear. Articles were excluded if the gender of one of the first or last author could not be determined. A total of 501 articles were included with the gender of 1002 authors analysed. 173 (17.3%) authors were female, and 828 (82.7%) were male. The most common author combination was male-male (70.3%) and the least common female-female (4.8%). The proportion of female authors increased over time from 9.3% in 2000 to 23.4% in 2020. Females remain under-represented within surgery, but female presence in academic output is increasing at a similar rate to the numbers of female uptake in the clinical workforce which is a promising sign and indicative of progress towards gender parity.

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