Understanding the gender gap in peer review at Nature Portfolio journals

Author: Dr Marios Karouzos and Dr. Sowmya Swaminathan

We know that supporting gender diversity in research and publishing has the potential to create better research questions, diversify methods and ultimately lead to better research outcomes for all. That’s why we looked deeper into this topic with a new report, Closing the Gender Gap: Peer Review at Nature Portfolio, which examines the current gender data for corresponding authors and reviewers at Nature Portfolio journals. We found that while women are underrepresented as authors and reviewers across the Nature Portfolio, this doesn’t have an impact on editorial and peer-review outcomes. We’re also encouraged to find evidence that efforts to improve gender representation through proactive editorial action and other efforts are working. We share a more detailed look at the results in this blog from Sowmya Swaminathan and Marios Karouzos.  

Estimating the diversity of the research community and benchmarking the representation of women in research is complex. Gender reporting places the percentage of women researchers globally between 30% and up to 50%, depending on career stage, region and discipline (UNESCO, SHE Figures 2024, Progress toward Gender Equality in Research & Innovation 2024). Women are 34% of corresponding authors globally with ~35% for EU-27, USA and China and 24% for India (SHE Figures 2024). Some key trends are shared across multiple benchmarking reports – first, the gender gap widens with seniority even in disciplines that have reached the “parity zone” (of 40-60% women) in early career and mid-career cohorts. Second, women constitute a high proportion of researchers in medicine/health sciences, life sciences and social sciences but continue to be underrepresented in several STEM fields, notably mathematics, physics, and engineering. Furthermore, researchers emphasise that at the current rate of change, some disciplines would take over a century to reach gender parity. 

Addressing gender diversity in research and publishing has the potential to diversify the types of research questions studied, the methodologies employed (especially greater attention to sex and gender analysis) and to improve research quality and impact. Sharing research findings through published articles and other formats plays an important role in shaping careers, influencing assessment of and progression for researchers. That is why we have examined the current gender data for corresponding authors and reviewers at Nature Portfolio journals to understand the potential impact of gender on submissions, the peer review process and on editorial decisions, in our new report Closing the Gender Gap: Peer Review at Nature Portfolio.

Quantifying the gender gap in authorship 

Analysing self-reported author and reviewer data for articles across Nature Portfolio journals, (includes Nature, the Nature Research and Review journals, Nature Communications, the Communications journals, and the NPJ series), we find that men far outnumber women, making up 65% to 90% of authors and reviewers, depending on whether it is original research or commissioned review-type articles, on the discipline and on the selectivity of the journal. Women are least represented in the most selective journals (12%-15% for Nature and the Nature Research journals versus 22%-23% for the Communications journals and the NPJs) and in the physical sciences (around 10% for physics, chemistry, materials and engineering versus 20%-30% in life sciences, medicine and psychology).  

The role of editors in narrowing the gender gap 

We previously reported on the pivotal role of editors in shaping the research landscape, and here we can directly assess the role that our editors play in ensuring fairness and inclusivity in the selection and peer review process.  Close to 14.7% of original research articles with women corresponding authors are sent out to review versus 13.4% for men corresponding authors. Similarly, around 14.8% of original research articles authored by women corresponding authors get accepted versus 13.9% for men. Given the sample size and the fraction of corresponding authors choosing not to disclose their gender, these differences are not statistically significant. Our analysis therefore finds no evidence that women corresponding authors are less likely to have their manuscripts sent out to review or get accepted for publication. This indicates that the assessment is based on merit and that the internal editors at Nature Portfolio journals and external reviewers do not introduce bias into the process. 

Our analysis also highlights the important role that editors of Nature Portfolio journals play in promoting gender equity in the peer review process and publishing more broadly.  

• We find that review-type articles, commissioned by our editors, have a higher representation of women corresponding authors than the organic submissions our journals receive (23% for commissioned review articles versus 18% for original research articles).  
• We see higher representation of women in commissioned review articles irrespective of discipline of the article, region of the corresponding author or selectivity of the journal.  
• Equally encouraging is that the gender representation of reviewers (also invited by our internal editors) is also higher than of corresponding authors at the same journal. This latter point is especially important as our analysis indicates that when an article with a woman corresponding author is reviewed by a panel of referees of mixed genders, it is more like to be accepted that if it were reviewed by an all-men referee panel. 

The imbalance in gender representation found in our analysis is largely consistent with other reports. However, we are optimistic about the evidence that through robust editorial policies, training, and proactive engagement, journal editors and publishers at large can positively influence gender diversity.  We are especially encouraged by our data showing that proactively recruiting and mentoring early-career researchers in the peer review process significantly boosts gender diversity and yields many benefits besides for journals including supporting a rising generation of researchers. We have much more to do to address the challenges outlined above and detailed in this report. Ensuring a more inclusive research community requires an ongoing commitment to data collection, transparency and inclusive editorial practices, looking beyond gender to a much broader set of diversity characteristics. 

You can find out more about our wider commitments and actions to increase gender diversity on the Springer Nature DEI website page for our editor community. This Springboard blog also summarises the action we’re taking across our publications, platforms and policies to champion and support women whilst seeking to eliminate barriers for the next generation.