Gender differences in publication output: towards an unbiased metric of research performance

We examined the publication records of a cohort of 168 life scientists in the field of ecology and evolutionary biology to assess gender differences in research performance. Clear discrepancies in publication rate between men and women appear very early in their careers and this has consequences for...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2006-12, Vol.1 (1), p.e127-e127
Main Authors: Symonds, Matthew R E, Gemmell, Neil J, Braisher, Tamsin L, Gorringe, Kylie L, Elgar, Mark A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Australia
Author productivity
Bias
Biological Evolution
Citation analysis
Cohort Studies
Ecological monitoring
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology
Female
Gender aspects
Gender differences
Gender Identity
Humans
Interpersonal Relations
Male
Prejudice
Publishing - standards
Publishing - statistics & numerical data
Research - standards
Research - statistics & numerical data
Science Policy
Scientists
Sex differences
United Kingdom
Women
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We examined the publication records of a cohort of 168 life scientists in the field of ecology and evolutionary biology to assess gender differences in research performance. Clear discrepancies in publication rate between men and women appear very early in their careers and this has consequences for the subsequent citation of their work. We show that a recently proposed index designed to rank scientists fairly is in fact strongly biased against female researchers, and advocate a modified index to assess men and women on a more equitable basis.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0000127