Women and Global South strikingly underrepresented among top‐publishing ecologists

Autor(en)
Bea Maas, Robin J Pakeman, Laurent Godet, Linnea Smith, Vincent Devictor, Richard Primack
Abstrakt

The global scientific community has become increasingly diverse over recent decades, but is this ongoing development also reflected among top‐publishing authors and potential scientific leaders? We surveyed 13 leading journals in ecology, evolution, and conservation to investigate the diversity of the 100 top‐publishing authors in each journal between 1945 and 2019. Out of 1051 individual top‐publishing authors, only 11% are women. The United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, and Canada account for more than 75% of top‐publishing authors, while countries of the Global South (as well as Russia, Japan, and South Korea) were strikingly underrepresented. The number of top‐publishing authors who are women and/or are from the Global South is increasing only slowly over time. We outline transformative actions that scientific communities can take to enhance diversity, equity and inclusion at author, leadership, and society level. The resulting promotion of scientific innovation and productivity is essential for the development of global solutions in conservation science.

Organisation(en)
Department für Botanik und Biodiversitätsforschung
Externe Organisation(en)
Universität für Bodenkultur Wien, The James Hutton Institute, Université de Nantes, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Université de Montpellier, Boston University
Journal
Conservation Letters
Band
14
Anzahl der Seiten
9
ISSN
1755-263X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12797
Publikationsdatum
07-2021
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
106047 Tierökologie, 106030 Pflanzenökologie, 504031 Diversitätsforschung, 405001 Agrarökologie
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Ecology
Link zum Portal
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/644571a8-12c5-4699-ab35-95af90b7c993