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  • Item type:Publication,
    Are there gender differences in academic medical career aspirations related to research, mentoring and discrimination? A national cross-sectional study of French medical residents Open PDF 
    (BMJ, 2026-05)
    Deledalle, Aurore
    ;
    Congard, Anne
    ;
    Bour, Valentine
    ;
    Sarda, Élisa
    ;
    Cohen, Fleur
    OBJECTIVES: Academic medical careers remain marked by persistent gender inequalities, despite the growing feminisation of the medical workforce. The objective of this study was to examine whether gender differences exist in key individual and institutional determinants of academic medical career aspirations among medical residents, including research motivation, mentoring, work centrality, self-efficacy, perceived discrimination and stress. DESIGN: This was a national cross-sectional online survey. SETTING: Multicentre study conducted across 36 medical schools in France. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 1570 medical residents (997 women and 573 men) voluntarily participated between November 2022 and February 2023. All participants completed validated self-report questionnaires. There were no exclusion criteria beyond being enrolled in a French residency programme. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Attitudes towards research (interest, motivation, significance) were measured using the Scale of Attitudes towards Research. Mentoring was assessed with the Mentor-Mentee Perception Questionnaire, work centrality with Hirschfeld and Feild's scale, self-efficacy with the General Self-Efficacy Scale, perceived discrimination with the Sexual Harassment and Discrimination Experiences of Academic Medical Faculty instrument and stress with the Perceived Stress Scale. Gender differences were analysed using t-tests or χ² tests with Holm-Bonferroni corrections for multiple comparisons. RESULTS: Compared with men, women reported lower research motivation (mean (SD) 21.0 (5.5) vs 22.8 (5.5); padj=0.011), lower research interest (27.1 (5.5) vs 28.1 (5.7); padj=0.011), lower work centrality (26.7 (7.0) vs 28.2 (8.1); padj=0.011) and lower self-efficacy (28.3 (5.2) vs 29.9 (5.0); padj=0.011). Women were less likely to report having a mentor (38.5% vs 44.5%; padj=0.02). They also reported substantially higher levels of experienced gender discrimination (22.8% vs 3.8%; padj=0.005), sexual harassment (57.7% vs 18.2%; padj=0.005) and perceived stress (8.48 (3.29) vs 7.27 (3.43); padj=0.011) CONCLUSIONS: Gender differences were observed across several individual and institutional factors associated with academic medical career aspirations. Reduced access to mentoring and greater exposure to discrimination and stress among women may contribute to lower research motivation and self-efficacy. These findings highlight the need for institutional strategies addressing mentoring, workplace culture and equity to support gender parity in academic medicine.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Gender bias in evaluating assistant professorship applicants? Evidence from harmonized survey experiments in Germany and Italy Open PDF 
    (Elsevier BV, 2025-02)
    Gërxhani, Klarita
    ;
    Kulic, Nevena
    ;
    Rusconi, Alessandra
    ;
    Solga, Heike
    Abstract This study investigates gender biases in the evaluation of applicants for assistant professorships in Germany and Italy. Drawing on the justification-suppression model of prejudice expression, we explore whether biases against women are expressed, suppressed, or even reversed in the appointment process, considering the different normative gender climates and gender equality strategies in the two countries. Using harmonized factorial survey experiments with professors of economics, political science, and social sciences, we found that women in Germany have an advantage both in perceived qualification for an assistant professorship and in the propensity to receive an interview invitation. In contrast, women in Italy are neither disadvantaged nor advantaged. We also examine whether gender biases exist when there is ambiguity about applicants' academic performance (co-authorship) and career commitment (parental leave). Our results reveal a co-authorship penalty and a parenthood premium in both countries, with no gender differences observed. Our exploratory country comparison suggests that Germany's proactive gender equality policies may be more effective in reducing the gender gap in assistant professor appointments compared to Italy's gender-neutral approach, by favoring equally qualified female applicants.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Gender Gap in Scientific Publications on COVID-19 in Italy During the First Wave of the Pandemic: An Observational Study Open PDF 
    (2022)
    Mazzalai, Elena
    ;
    Turatto, Federica
    ;
    De Vito, Corrado
    Background: Worldwide, concerns rise on how COVID-19 pandemic impacted heavily on women, even on those belonging to the scientific community. The Italian scientific production regarding the COVID-19 throughout the first months of the health emergency could help to understand the heft of female researchers in this unique period. Objectives: This study aims to investigate the gender gap in the scientific production on COVID-19 in Italy during the first months of the pandemic. Methods: A systematic search of the literature was conducted and, for each included study, first and last author's gender, type of study, number of co-authors, type of affiliation, journal's Impact Factor (IF) and specialization were extracted. Descriptive and univariate analyses were performed. Results: 22.2% of the articles were signed by a woman as first author, 18.1% as last authors. Female authorship was less frequent than male authorship regardless of the type of study, number of co-authors, type of affiliation and field of specialization. Conclusion: This analysis reveal a low prevalence of studies with a female first or last author and suggests that the low share of female authors publishing on COVID-19 during the considered timespan is a transversal issue throughout the Italian medical field.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Who Decides Matters: Female Representation and Academic Career Advancement
    (2024)
    Brunetti, Marianna
    ;
    Fabretti, Annalisa
    ;
    Zoli, Mariangela
    This paper investigates the gender gap in academic promotions. The theoretical model proposed, in which men and women collectively negotiate their career upgrades but with different bargaining power, predicts that the likelihood of career progression for women depends negatively on the share of female scholars among the eligible candidates and positively on the available resources and women’s bargaining power. We relate the latter to metrics of women’s relative representation, such as the Glass-Ceiling Index, the Female Ratio, and the Share of Females in the boards in charge of deciding about those promotions. Leveraging a novel and suitably built dataset covering the universe of Italian Universities’ Departments, we find robust evidence supporting these predictions. In particular, the probability of women being upgraded to associate and full professors is strongly and positively associated with the shares of women in the pool of professors in charge of deciding about those promotions.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Equity for excellence in academic institutions: a manifesto for change Open PDF 
    (2021)
    Wedekind, Lauren
    ;
    Noé, Andrés
    ;
    Mokaya, Jolynne
    ;
    Tamandjou, Cynthia
    ;
    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.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Gender differences in research areas, methods and topics: Can people and thing orientations explain the results? Open PDF 
    (2019)
    Thelwall, M.
    ;
    Bailey, C.
    ;
    Tobin, C.
    ;
    Bradshaw, N.-A.
    Although the gender gap in academia has narrowed, females are underrepresented within some fields in the USA. Prior research suggests that the imbalances between science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields may be partly due to greater male interest in things and greater female interest in people, or to off-putting masculine cultures in some disciplines. To seek more detailed insights across all subjects, this article compares practising US male and female researchers between and within 285 narrow Scopus fields inside 26 broad fields from their first-authored articles published in 2017. The comparison is based on publishing fields and the words used in article titles, abstracts, and keywords. The results cannot be fully explained by the people/thing dimensions. Exceptions include greater female interest in veterinary science and cell biology and greater male interest in abstraction, patients, and power/control fields, such as politics and law. These may be due to other factors, such as the ability of a career to provide status or social impact or the availability of alternative careers. As a possible side effect of the partial people/thing relationship, females are more likely to use exploratory and qualitative methods and males are more likely to use quantitative methods. The results suggest that the necessary steps of eliminating explicit and implicit gender bias in academia are insufficient and might be complemented by measures to make fields more attractive to minority genders. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Unconscious Gender Bias in Academia: Scarcity of Empirical Evidence Open PDF 
    (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2020)
    Skov, Torsten
    Implicit or unconscious bias is commonly proposed to be responsible for women’s underrepresentation in academia. The aim of this scoping review was to identify and discuss the evidence supporting this proposition. Publications about unconscious/implicit gender bias in academia indexed in Scopus or psycInfo up to February 2020 were identified. More than half were published in the period 2018–2020. Studies reporting empirical data were scrutinized for data, as well as analyses showing an association of a measure of implicit or unconscious bias and lesser employment or career opportunities in academia for women than for men. No studies reported empirical evidence as thus defined. Reviews of unconscious bias identified via informal searches referred exclusively to studies that did not self-identify as addressing unconscious bias. Reinterpretations and misrepresentations of studies were common in these reviews. More empirical evidence about unconscious gender bias in academia is needed. With the present state of knowledge, caution should be exercised when interpreting data about gender gaps in academia. Ascribing observed gender gaps to unconscious bias is unsupported by the scientific literature.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Gender disparity in research productivity across departments in the faculty of medicine: a bibliometric analysis Open PDF 
    (2021)
    Rachid, E.
    ;
    Noureddine, T.
    ;
    Tamim, H.
    ;
    Makki, M.
    ;
    Naalbandian, S.
    Women’s contributions to the medical field have increased substantially over the past 4 decades but women remain underrepresented. Since research productivity is an important criterion for promotion, it was essential to assess the gender differences within the faculty of medicine and across departments. We conducted a bibliometric analysis using the Scopus database between 2009 and 2018 at the American University of Beirut (N = 324, 93 women, 231 men). Women comprised 29% of the faculty. The rank of Professor was held by 34% of men and 18% of women (p < 0.0001). Mean number of publications was 30.12 for males compared to 20.77 for females (p = 0.007). Men were more often last authors (p < 0.0001) and corresponding authors (p < 0.01). In the MD subcategory (N = 282), the gender difference in number of publications, H-index, and total citations was not significant. Women MDs were underrepresented as last authors (p < 0.0001). Among PhD faculty (N = 42), males had greater H-Indices (p = 0.02) and were more often last and corresponding authors. After adjusting for the year of appointment: the gender differences in corresponding and last authorship lost statistical significance among MDs but not among PhDs where it became more pronounced. In conclusion, women in the faculty of medicine were underrepresented in most departments, senior ranks and senior research authorships; H-indices generally did not differ, which was partially explained by the later year of appointment among females. In a developing country, greater family responsibilities especially early in their careers, may put women at a disadvantage in research productivity. © 2021, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Gender disparities in Russian academia: a bibliometric analysis Open PDF 
    (2022)
    Pilkina, M.
    ;
    Lovakov, A.
    The problem of gender disparities in various areas of society has long been well known and identified in most countries. Russian academia is no exception. This paper describes the representation of Russian men and women authors in terms of research production. The analysis is based on 121,953 papers with at least one Russian author, covered by Web of Science (WoS) and published between 2017 and 2019. The results demonstrate that there are still evident signs of gender disparities. Women remain underrepresented in their overall presence and performance almost in all disciplines and generally in academia. In all research fields, women’s mean number of publications is lower than analogous indicators for men. Although some areas have relative gender parity and even more women authors, the gap between both genders remains stable for most disciplines. As a result, despite some improvements in women’s research performance, Russian academia is the case, demonstrating that without a gender policy in both Russian political and science systems, it is complicated to eliminate gender inequality. © 2022, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Digital technology helps remove gender bias in academia Open PDF 
    (2021)
    Fortin, J.
    ;
    Bartlett, B.
    ;
    Kantar, M.
    ;
    Tseng, M.
    ;
    Mehrabi, Z.
    Science attempts to be a meritocracy; however, in recent years, there has been increasing evidence for systematic gender bias against women. This bias is present in many metrics commonly used to evaluate scientific productivity, which in turn influences hiring and career success. Here we explore a new metric, the Altmetric Attention Score, and find no evidence of bias across many major journals (Nature, PNAS, PLOS One, New England Journal of Medicine, Cell, and BioRxiv), with equal attention afforded to articles authored by men and women alike. The exception to this rule is the journal Science, which has marked gender bias against women in 2018, equivalent to a mean of 88 more tweets or 11 more news articles and a median of 20 more tweets or 3 more news articles for male than female first authors. Our findings qualify Altmetric, for many types and disciplines of journals, as a potentially unbiased measure of science communication in academia and suggest that new technologies, such as those on which Altmetric is based, might help to democratize academic evaluation. © 2021, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary.