Gender bias is present in a variety of scientific settings including faculty hiring, scientific publishing, grant funding, and more. Yet the review processes that generate these skewed outcomes largely happen behind closed doors, making them difficult to study.
A preprint posted on bioRxiv on August 29 takes a peek behind the curtain, providing insight into how bias creeps into the review process at the journal eLife—and suggests ways in which the review process could be improved to mitigate biases in the future.
The Scientist spoke with coauthors Jennifer Raymond, a neurobiologist at Stanford University and a reviewing editor at eLife, and Andrew Collings, executive editor at eLife, to learn more about their recent study.
TS: What motivated you to look for gender biases in peer review?
Jennifer Raymond: Recently, there was a meeting at AAAS on implicit bias and peer review. It was called in response to inquiries from some ...
