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A persistent lack of international representation on editorial boards in environmental biology.

ABSTRACT: The scholars comprising journal editorial boards play a critical role in defining the trajectory of knowledge in their field. Nevertheless, studies of editorial board composition remain rare, especially those focusing on journals publishing research in the increasingly globalized fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Using metrics for quantifying the diversity of ecological communities, we quantified international representation on the 1985-2014 editorial boards of 24 environmental biology journals. Over the course of 3 decades, there were 3,827 unique scientists based in 70 countries who served as editors. The size of the editorial community increased over time-the number of editors serving in 2014 was 4-fold greater than in 1985-as did the number of countries in which editors were based. Nevertheless, editors based outside the "Global North" (the group of economically developed countries with high per capita gross domestic product [GDP] that collectively concentrate most global wealth) were extremely rare. Furthermore, 67.18% of all editors were based in either the United States or the United Kingdom. Consequently, geographic diversity-already low in 1985-remained unchanged through 2014. We argue that this limited geographic diversity can detrimentally affect the creativity of scholarship published in journals, the progress and direction of research, the composition of the STEM workforce, and the development of science in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and much of Asia (i.e., the "Global South").

SUBMITTER: Espin J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5726619 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A persistent lack of international representation on editorial boards in environmental biology.

Espin Johanna J Palmas Sebastian S Carrasco-Rueda Farah F Riemer Kristina K Allen Pablo E PE Berkebile Nathan N Hecht Kirsten A KA Kastner-Wilcox Kay K Núñez-Regueiro Mauricio M MM Prince Candice C Rios Constanza C Ross Erica E Sangha Bhagatveer B Tyler Tia T Ungvari-Martin Judit J Villegas Mariana M Cataldo Tara T TT Bruna Emilio M EM

PLoS biology 20171212 12

The scholars comprising journal editorial boards play a critical role in defining the trajectory of knowledge in their field. Nevertheless, studies of editorial board composition remain rare, especially those focusing on journals publishing research in the increasingly globalized fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Using metrics for quantifying the diversity of ecological communities, we quantified international representation on the 1985-2014 editorial boards of 24 envi ...[more]

PMID: 29232375

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Project description:IntroductionThere is a notable under-representation of women in leadership positions in ophthalmology despite the increasing number of women as ophthalmologists. Gender inequality in editorial boards of ophthalmology journals has not been investigated on a global scale. This study will aim to evaluate the representation of women as editorial board members in ophthalmology journals across different regions, journal subspecialties and impact factors.Methods and analysisThis will be a cross-sectional study describing the gender composition of editorial boards in ophthalmology journals globally. Ulrich's Periodicals Directory and SCImago Journal & Country Rank will be used to comprehensively identify journals indexed with the keyword, 'ophthalmology'. All journals with active websites and lists of editorial boards will be included. Journals will be categorised according to the World Bank's 2021 classification of countries by income and region, and classified into ophthalmology subspecialties based on publication scope. Impact factors will be obtained from Journal Citation Reports. The gender and academic degrees of each editorial board member will be determined based on journal profiles, institutional websites or name query feature on an online interface. The research impact of each editorial board member will be ascertained from the author records on Web of Science. The gender proportion will be presented for all journals combined, and then for journals grouped by regions, subspecialties and impact factors. Editorial board member characteristics including academic degrees and research productivity measures will be compared between men and women. These comparisons will be made using the χ2 test for categorical variables and the independent samples t-test for continuous variables.Ethics and disseminationThis study did not require research ethics approval given the use of publicly available data and lack of human subjects. The results will be presented at scientific meetings and published in peer-reviewed journals.

Project description:In light of global environmental crises and the need for sustainable development, the fields of public health and environmental sciences have become increasingly interrelated. Both fields require interdisciplinary thinking and global solutions, which is largely directed by scientific progress documented in peer-reviewed journals. Journal editors play a critical role in coordinating and shaping what is accepted as scientific knowledge. Previous research has demonstrated a lack of diversity in the gender and geographic representation of editors across scientific disciplines. This study aimed to explore the diversity of journal editorial boards publishing in environmental science and public health. The Clarivate Journal Citation Reports database was used to identify journals classified as Public, Environmental, and Occupational (PEO) Health, Environmental Studies, or Environmental Sciences. Current EB members were identified from each journal's publicly available website between 1 March and 31 May 2021. Individuals' names, editorial board roles, institutional affiliations, geographic locations (city, country), and inferred gender were collected. Binomial 95% confidence intervals were calculated for the proportions of interest. Pearson correlations with false discovery rate adjustment were used to assess the correlation between journal-based indicators and editorial board characteristics. Linear regression and logistic regression models were fitted to further assess the relationship between gender presence, low- and middle-income country (LMIC) presence and several journal and editor-based indicators. After identifying 628 unique journals and excluding discontinued or unavailable journals, 615 journal editorial boards were included. In-depth analysis was conducted on 591 journals with complete gender and geographic data for their 27,772 editors. Overall, the majority of editors were men (65.9%), followed by women (32.9%) and non-binary/other gender minorities (0.05%). 75.5% journal editorial boards (n = 446) were composed of a majority of men (>55% men), whilst only 13.2% (n = 78) demonstrated gender parity (between 45-55% women/gender minorities). Journals categorized as PEO Health had the most gender diversity. Furthermore, 84% of editors (n = 23,280) were based in high-income countries and only 2.5% of journals (n = 15) demonstrated economic parity in their editorial boards (between 45-55% editors from LMICs). Geographically, the majority of editors' institutions were based in the United Nations (UN) Western Europe and Other region (76.9%), with 35.2% of editors (n = 9,761) coming solely from the United States and 8.6% (n = 2,373) solely from the United Kingdom. None of the editors-in-chief and only 27 editors in total were women based in low-income countries. Through the examination of journal editorial boards, this study exposes the glaring lack of diversity in editorial boards in environmental science and public health, explores the power dynamics affecting the creation and dissemination of knowledge, and proposes concrete actions to remedy these structural inequities in order to inform more equitable, just and impactful knowledge creation.

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A persistent lack of international representation on editorial boards in environmental biology.

Publications

A persistent lack of international representation on editorial boards in environmental biology.

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