April 26, 2024

Q&A: Psych and Neuro Journals Primarily Edited by American Men

When it comes time who decide which scientific papers get considered for publication in prestigious brain science journals, many of the people making the call are still men, and most of them live and work in the United States, a new research study finds.The work, published Monday (February 21) in Nature Neuroscience, takes a close look at the editorial boards of the top 50 psychology and neuroscience journals worldwide as ranked by the Science Citation Index Expanded. The study found that just 20 percent of the leading psychology journals and 10 percent of the leading neuroscience journals have more women than males on their editorial boards. And Im sure the why is different for different individuals and different journals … I do think its intriguing that some of the journals that have full-time editors who are paid and thats all they do– theyre not academics doing this on their weekends– they tend to have more parity than the journals where it is just a side hustle.

When it comes time who decide which scientific documents get considered for publication in distinguished brain science journals, most of the people making the call are still guys, and many of them work and live in the United States, a new research study finds.The work, published Monday (February 21) in Nature Neuroscience, takes a close look at the editorial boards of the top 50 psychology and neuroscience journals worldwide as ranked by the Science Citation Index Expanded. The study discovered that only 20 percent of the leading psychology journals and 10 percent of the leading neuroscience journals have more women than males on their editorial boards. Im a female in science, and to publish my work I have to communicate with editors of journals. The breakdown of leading editors in psychology journals is closer to a 50/50 split than neuroscience, but still not excellent. And Im sure the why is different for various individuals and various journals … I do believe its fascinating that some of the journals that have full-time editors who are paid and thats all they do– theyre not academics doing this on their weekends– they tend to have more parity than the journals where it is just a side hustle.