Study finds gender of author has no effect on peer-review process

I stumbled across an interesting study in the journal BioScience that provides a though-provoking perspective on the state of conservation research. The study found that the gender of an author appears to have no effect on the peer review process for research papers in the biological sciences.

Robyn Borsuk and fellow researchers took a paper on zebra mussels and submitted it to peer review among biology undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty researchers. They removed the name of the original author and replaced it with one of four designations: no name, initial (J. Thompson),male (David Thompson), and female (Catherine Thompson).

They found that the name designation had no effect on rejection rates of the manuscript. They also found no same-sex preferences in reviewing. Interestingly though, rejection rates differed among referees.

Postdoctoral researchers and graduate students were more likely to reject the manuscript. Female reviewers rated the manuscript significantly lower than male respondents and this was driven mostly by female postdoctoral researchers who were the most critical of any group. The study authors write,

"Admittedly, this is the first experimental study of its kind and it has been tested on only one publication; nonetheless, there was no evidence of gender discrimination by author name, which is an extremely positive finding for biologists. The different tendencies in the likelihood of rejection by female referees does suggest, however, that not all individuals approach peer review using the same set of criteria"

The authors stress the importance of understanding why there are different tendencies among biologists in the peer review process. They write,

"Gender issues in science are complicated by many factors changing concurrently. Nonetheless, we propose that considerations of gender and peer review are crucial because the assessment of scientists relies heavily on their publication records."

I am curious what other readers' thoughts are about this study. For any researchers in the biological sciences out there, are these results consistent with your overall work experience?

--Reviewed by Rob Goldstein

Borsuk, R., Aarssen, L., Budden, A., Koricheva, J., Leimu, R., Tregenza, T., & Lortie, C. (2009). To Name or Not to Name: The Effect of Changing Author Gender on Peer Review BioScience, 59 (11), 985-989 DOI: 10.1525/bio.2009.59.11.10