PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Petra Edlund
AU  - Erin M. Tranfield
AU  - Vera van Noort
AU  - Karen Siu Ting
AU  - Sofia Tapani
AU  - Johanna L. Hoog
TI  - Gender balance in time-keeping at life science conferences
AID  - 10.1101/267120
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 267120
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/02/19/267120.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/02/19/267120.full
AB  - Scientific conferences are biased against women when selecting speakers, but recent studies showed a positive trend where the ratio of invited female speakers had increased. We have recorded speaking times at 12 different conferences during 2016-2017 to analyze which factors influenced a speaker’s time keeping. Men and women went over time 47% and 41% of the talks, respectively. In a regression analysis, it was found that the most important factors that influences how long a presenter spoke was 1) their allocated time, 2) their career stage and 3) the level of time keeping enforcement. It was also found that gender and the size of the conference contributed significantly towards the speaker’s timing. Male speakers exceeded their allocated time more frequently than female speakers, especially at large conferences (73% vs 49%). Since conferences are an important arena for science dissemination this might have a negative impact on female scientist’s careers.