Researchers who are not white face “significant” inequalities when publishing their work, including longer publication delays than white scientists and fewer overall citations. That is according to a new analysis in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which examined a million scientific papers published between 2001 and 2020. It also finds that Black researchers in the US are the most under-represented on journal editorial boards.
The study was carried out by Fengyuan Liu – a computer scientist at New York University Abu Dhabi – and colleagues Talao Rahwan and Bedoor AlShebli. The papers in the study were sourced from more than 500 journals from six different publishers: Frontiers Media, Hindawi, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, Public Library of Science and the National Academy of Sciences.
For each paper, the researchers identified the authors and the journal editors who handled the paper during the submission process, the latter being made up of nearly 65,000 people. Bibliometric information on both groups was accessed via the Microsoft Academic Graph dataset with a tool known as NamePrism being used to classify the scientists into one of six racial groups based on their names.
The study showed that scientists from the bulk of nations in Africa, Asia and South America — where most people are ethnically non-white — are under-represented on editorial boards relative to their representation among paper authors. Articles by researchers from these regions also generally have longer gaps between submission and acceptance compared to articles other published in the same journals during the same year.
‘A grim picture’
The researchers also found that papers by non-white scientists receive fewer citations than would be expected based on comparable articles by their white peers. The lower rate of citation will make those scientists less visible in the community find it harder to secure grants and awards.
When Liu and colleagues examined US-based scientists, they found Black researchers are the most under-represented on editorial boards and suffer from the longest delays between paper submission and publication. Black and Hispanic scientists in the US, meanwhile, receive far fewer citations than their white peers doing similar research.
In physics, the team found that around 80% of countries from Africa, Asia and South America are under-represented on editorial boards — a figure that is typical across the sciences. In contrast, European, North American and Oceanian countries are almost equally divided between being over- and under-represented on editorial boards. The importance of citing Black women in physics
The researchers say their findings “paint a grim picture in which non-white scientists suffer from inequalities that may hinder their academic careers”. To address these disparities, the authors call on journal publishers to review how they select board members, the time it takes to review submissions, and how they promote published manuscripts.
“The responsibility to take action falls not only on the shoulders of the publishers, but also on the scientific community as a whole to create an ecosystem without geographic and racial disparities,” the authors write.
