RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 A persistent lack of International representation on editorial boards in biology
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 131292
DO 10.1101/131292
A1 Johanna Espin
A1 Sebastian Palmas
A1 Farah Carrasco-Rueda
A1 Kristina Riemer
A1 Pablo E. Allen
A1 Nathan Berkebile
A1 Kirsten A. Hecht
A1 Kay Kastner-Wilcox
A1 Mauricio M. Núñez-Regueiro
A1 Candice Prince
A1 Constanza Rios
A1 Erica Ross
A1 Bhagatveer Singha
A1 Tia Tyler
A1 Judit Ungvari-Martin
A1 Mariana Villegas
A1 Tara T. Cataldo
A1 Emilio M. Bruna
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/05/05/131292.abstract
AB The scholars comprising journal editorial boards play a critical role in defining the trajectory of knowledge in their field. Nevertheless, studies of editorial board composition remain rare, especially those focusing on journals publishing research in the increasingly globalized fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Using the combined membership of N = 24 editorial boards of environmental biology journals, we tested for changes in the international representation among editors 1985-2014 with metrics used to the diversity of ecological communities. Over the course of these three decades, 3831 unique scientists based in 70 countries served as editors. However, 67.06% of editors were based in the USA and UK, while editors based in the Global South were extremely rare. The number of countries in which editors were based (i.e., Geographic Richness) did increase over the 30-year survey period, but most of these newly represented countries were in Western Europe. As a result, Geographic Diversity remained unchanged from 1985-2014. This – coupled with the 420% increase in the number of editors serving each year – resulted in a significant decline in Geographic Evenness over time. We argue that this limited geographic diversity can detrimentally affect the creativity of scholarship published in journals, the progress and direction of research, the composition of the STEM workforce, and the development of science in the Global South.