Gender in the Global Research Landscape

Through its New Scholars program, the Elsevier Foundation has contributed to the advancement of early- to mid-career women scholars for more than a decade via grants and other partner investments. These efforts laid a foundation of success upon which Elsevier has built broader corporate level gender initiatives. Last year, Elsevier placed a priority on fostering a gender-balanced workplace by implementing the EDGE (Eco- nomic Dividends for Gender Equality) program across our eight core business centers in numerous locations worldwide, thereby being among the first information service and technology companies in the world to be certified globally. Concomitantly, we formed a trans-business Gender Working Group to address external-facing issues such as enhancing sex and gender reporting in research and achieving gender balance for journal editorial boards and conferences. Further, Elsevier is committed to establishing a research framework for addressing gender issues to help advance policy. An important aspect of our commitment is this comprehensive report, Gender in the Global Research Landscape, a follow-on to Elsevier’s groundbreaking 2015 report, Mapping Gender in the German Research Arena .

Critical issues related to gender disparity and bias must be examined by sound studies. Drawing upon a collection of high-quality global data sources and analytical expertise, Elsevier has produced this report as an evidence-based examination of the outputs, quality, and impact of research worldwide through a gender lens and as a vehicle for understanding the role of gender within the structure of the global research enterprise. Gender in the Global Research Landscape employs bibliometric analyses and methodologies that enable gender disambiguation of authors within the Scopus® abstract and citation database and includes comparisons between twenty-seven subject areas, across twelve comparator countries and regions, over two decades. Elsevier partnered with expert stakeholder organizations and individuals around the world who provided advice on the report’s development, including the research questions, methodologies, and ana- lytics, and a policy context for the report findings. Our intention is to share powerful insights and guidance on gender research and gender equality policy with governments, funders, and institutions worldwide and to inspire further evidence-based studies. 

Key Findings

The proportion of women among researchers and inventors is increasing in all twelve comparator countries and regions over time.
chapter 1

Women publish fewer research papers on average than men, but there is no evidence that this affects how their papers are cited or downloaded. chapter 1

Women are less likely than men to collaborate internationally on research papers.
chapter 2

Women are slightly less likely than men to collaborate across the academic and corporate sectors on research papers.
chapter 2

In general, women’s scholarly output includes a slightly larger proportion of highly interdisciplinary research than men’s.
chapter 2

Among researchers, women are generally less internationally mobile than men.
chapter 2

Gender research is growing in terms of size and complexity, with new topics emerging over time. chapter 3

The former dominance of the United States in gender research has declined as research activity in the European Union has risen.
chapter 3