New Delhi: Academic manuscripts written by female authors in biosciences take about seven to 14 per cent longer to undergo peer review than those written by their male counterparts. A research paper published in PLOS Biology last week analysed more than 36 million papers in the PubMed database and found that this was the case across the board—even when the papers are of the same length, published in the same year, in the same journal, have the same number of authors, and similar readability.
“The gender gap is pervasive, affecting most disciplines, regardless of how well women are represented in each discipline,” said the study, conducted by the University of Nevada, USA.
Published on 20 January, this was the largest ever analysis conducted on the time articles spent in peer review. Previous studies have shown this phenomenon in the field of economics and engineering, but the PLOS Biology study is the first time millions of articles have been analysed, spanning more than a century from 1900 onward.
They found that while female researchers increased in representation over time, from 2.3 per cent in 1900 to 38.7 per cent in 2024, there was a definite trend of articles by female first authors and corresponding authors spending longer under review than those by male authors.
Moreover, the study also found that articles by people from low and middle-income countries spend 25-44 per cent longer in peer review as compared to those by authors from other countries. This finding, though, is consistent for both men and women.
These results aren’t surprising to Indian women in STEM.
“There’s definitely an element of reality in this, and it is part of a much larger problem,” said Shobhona Sharma, retired senior professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. “Even though there could be some inherent bias, it’s more about the presence and visibility of women in science. That is what needs to change, and it is, slowly.”
Sharma, who is also a member of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy, said that the delay in peer review is only one element; the broader issue is to do with networking and knowing the right people in academia. If women are unable to break into the right circles, they network far less, get published far less, are invited to fewer conferences, and in general remain unseen in the field.
The paper also acknowledges this. While a delay of seven to 15 days for one paper might not seem like a lot, for every 50 papers, female researchers have to, on average, wait 300-700 days longer than their male counterparts. In an industry where publications affect promotions and grant acceptances, this delay is significant, said the paper.
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Barriers for women in academia
Indian women scientists across fields—biology, immunology, geology, disease ecology, public health, and even social sciences—spoke about the invisible barriers present in academia even today. They also highlighted the lack of many reputed academic journals in India for publishing, and the broader challenges faced by researchers from the developing world in global journals.
“I work in social work and public health, and we research the negative impacts of sexism and racism in theory, but when it comes to practically applying these concepts in real life, many academics shy away,” said a female researcher, who recently completed her PhD from a US university and requested anonymity. “Having representation, both in terms of gender and racial diversity, helps a lot to counteract discrimination.”
This representation can come in many ways, at different stages. There are multiple stages an article goes through to make its way from a manuscript to a published journal. From the initial research proposal to funding grants, to receiving approval from the journal editors, sending the article to peer reviewers, making revisions, and then final editorial decisions, academics have to worry about a lot of factors before they can publish their research.
The PLOS Biology study showed how women tend to be, on average, less represented in top research institutions, in peer review committees, and less experienced. This leads to them being inherently disadvantaged when it comes to the academic system.
For some researchers like Farah Ishtiaq, the issue also becomes about age. Ishtiaq, who is currently a principal scientist at the Tata Institute for Genetics and Society, talked about the age limits on most academic positions in India—from 28 years for most junior research fellows to 35-40 years for postdoctoral researchers. These age limits act as barriers to entry for many Indian academics, but it becomes even more difficult for women who might be looking to balance their career alongside raising a family.
“We have amazing academic fellowships in the country to attract bright young minds, and they have managed to do so too. But many of them have been designed in a way that age plays a major role. Surely the quality of science should be the focus alongside age?” she said.
Meanwhile, Shobhona Sharma, who specialises in immunology and molecular biology, recalls how one of her proposals was not selected for a grant because she and her collaborator, also female, were not known to the reviewers.
“I found out later that the academic merit of the proposal was not taken into consideration as much as pre-existing networks were,” said Sharma.
However, one of the biggest issues in journal publishing today, which was highlighted both by the PLOS Biology article and the female scientists ThePrint spoke to, is the one faced by scientists from the developing world.
“I have always found that articles from the Global North have a higher rate of acceptance. This could be because of structural disbelief as well—reviewers could be from the North, and may not believe the authenticity of the information in articles from the majority world,” said Misria Shaik Ali, a post-doctoral fellow at IIT Delhi. “It is a huge problem in terms of asymmetries that are created.”
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Developing vs developed world in publishing
The University of Nevada researchers wanted to see whether the delay in peer review time for female researchers is specific to certain countries. During this analysis, they realised that all researchers—male and female—from low-and middle-income countries (as classified by the World Bank) face longer peer review periods than their counterparts.
Indian academics echo this finding, talking about the various challenges faced by Indian researchers on both global and national levels.
A researcher who was pursuing her PhD at a university in the US recalled how she saw different academic standards being applied to her as opposed to her largely non-diverse cohort. From comments on her accent and her English writing, to losing potential conference opportunities, to even questions about her research focused on the developing world, she noticed certain microaggressions that seemed to be targeted towards her race.
“Overall, papers from the developing world tend to have a much harder time in peer review. This gap is reducing a little with the ascent of Chinese academic science, but it still exists,” said Gautam Menon, professor of physics and biology at Ashoka University.
Despite this, Indian researchers can’t help but publish in international journals. According to Menon and Sharma, there are two main reasons for this: Institutions continue to assess the importance of research based on the journals it gets published in, and not on their own assessment of its quality, and India still has a limited number of research journals in STEM that are of international stature.
While India ranks 3rd globally in terms of total research publications (2,07,390) in 2024, the number of actual, reputed journals in the country is still low. According to a 2020 report by Clarivate, there are only 314 Indian journals in science and technology that are included in the Journal Citation Reports list.
Only 104 of these have a Journal Impact Factor (JIF) score, which determines the international visibility of a journal and how often its articles are cited. For Indian researchers looking to publish their articles, the options are few and far between in India. Meanwhile, outside, they have to deal with extra scrutiny and delays, as mentioned in the PLOS Biology paper.
Some advances are being made toward equal opportunities and representation, at least in the humanities. Misria, who serves on the editorial board of an international journal, recalls the journal’s annual review meeting last year.
“The journal’s editors looked at the statistics on how many articles were submitted from which countries, how many were accepted, and what the issues with representation are,” she said. “There are baby steps towards reducing gender and regional bias, because some editors serve with critical values of inclusivity.”
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)