Who are the gatekeepers of economics? Geographic diversity, gender composition, and interlocking editorship of journal boards

Members of editorial boards play the role of gatekeepers of science because. This paper analyses the national distribution of editorial boards members of economics journal, their affiliation, and their gender. It studies also the interlocking editorship network generated by the presence of a same person on the editorial board of more than one journal. The analysis is based on a unique database comprising all the 1,516 journals indexed in the database EconLit with an active editorial board in 2019. For each journal, we manually collected the names of the board members along with their affiliation, obtaining a database containing more than 44,000 members from more than 6,000 institutions and 142 countries. These data allow to investigate the phenomenon of gatekeeping in contemporary economics on an unprecedented large scale. The obtained results highlight some common issues concerning the editorial gatekeeping, leading to the conclusion that in Economics the academic publishing environment is governed by an \'elite composed mainly of men affiliated with United States \'elite universities. Homophily in terms of geographic, institutional and gender distribution is higher in the most prestigious journal and among Editors-in-Chief. Finally, it appears that `strategic decisions' in the selection of board members reproduce this homophily.Comment: 23 pages, 23 table, 6 figure

Who are the gatekeepers of economics? Geographic diversity, gender composition, and interlocking editorship of journal boards

Members of editorial boards play the role of gatekeepers of science because. This paper analyses the national distribution of editorial boards members of economics journal, their affiliation, and their gender. It studies also the interlocking editorship network generated by the presence of a same person on the editorial board of more than one journal. The analysis is based on a unique database comprising all the 1,516 journals indexed in the database EconLit with an active editorial board in 2019. For each journal, we manually collected the names of the board members along with their affiliation, obtaining a database containing more than 44,000 members from more than 6,000 institutions and 142 countries. These data allow to investigate the phenomenon of gatekeeping in contemporary economics on an unprecedented large scale. The obtained results highlight some common issues concerning the editorial gatekeeping, leading to the conclusion that in Economics the academic publishing environment is governed by an \'elite composed mainly of men affiliated with United States \'elite universities. Homophily in terms of geographic, institutional and gender distribution is higher in the most prestigious journal and among Editors-in-Chief. Finally, it appears that `strategic decisions' in the selection of board members reproduce this homophily

The small world of editorships: A network on innovation studies

Editors exert a significant influence on journal's mission and governing the strategic direction of outlets. They are the channels gatekeepers not only by ensuring the quality but also by guaranteeing the integrity of novels produced. For being such an important piece of scientific puzzle, they are a research object of utmost interest which is rather fragmented. This paper aims to better understand the relationships between editors seated on boards of 20 innovation top-tiers. The sample considered comprised 2,440 editors occupying 3,005 editorial positions and assuming 122 different duties. No single journal is free from this interlocking editorship phenomenon and 18.6% of the scholars serve on multiple boards. We deploy social network analysis to further inquire and model the editorial relationships in which innovation journals are embedded. Our results offer new insights on how the field is organised: 627 lines linking the journals were found with a 41.6% interlocking density. Research Policy has the highest number of direct links to other boards (degree) and the shortest distance from all network journals (closeness) while Industrial and Corporate Change is the one bridging the largest number of other pairs of journals (betweenness), followed by Small Business Economics and Research Policy.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Computational innovation studies: understanding innovation studies through novel scientometric approaches

A cientometria é uma importante área de investigação dedicada ao estudo quantitativo da ciência e está a expandir-se a um ritmo sem precedentes. Surgiu como um paradigma de avaliação e espera-se que ajude na resolução de problemas sociais complexos. Apesar da sua importância, pouco se sabe sobre os guardiões da ciência e os mecanismos de governação editorial mais amplos que ajudam a orientar os esforços científicos. Neste projeto, seguimos uma perspetiva pouco explorada (assumimos os conselhos editoriais e as revistas como veículo institucional), numa área específica de investigação científica (os Estudos de Inovação). Abordamos diferentes aspetos em três etapas: em primeiro lugar, produzimos um retrato abrangente do fenómeno editorial, sondando as características estruturais heterogéneas dos conselhos editoriais, que são dominados por editores masculinos, anglo-americanos que exibem uma concentração de 85% das posições editoriais em 20% dos países; em segundo lugar, comparamos os materiais publicitários das revistas (blurbs) com uma medida de semelhança do cosseno identificando seis revistas com mais de 80% de semelhança semântica com a "Research Policy" (a revista principal) e descobrimos que as revistas podem ser classificadas em quatro grupos; e em terceiro lugar, combinamos os resumos (abstracts) das revistas realmente publicados com a descrição publicitária, revelando que o conteúdo selecionado em cinco revistas teria tido maior interesse para outras. Por fim, desenvolvemos uma ferramenta interativa que permite comparar a semelhança dos conteúdos publicados pelas revistas. Estas estratégias de investigação apresentadas juntam-se ao portfólio de metodologias que os analistas de política científica podem usar para compreender sistematicamente as agendas de revistas, a fim de refletir sobre o que foi realizado e o que ainda está por fazer.Scientometrics is an important research field that is dedicated to the quantitative study of science and is expanding at an unprecedented rate. It emerged as an evaluation paradigm and is expected to assist in the resolution of complex societal problems. For years, the impact of research has been at the top of the agenda for policymakers, however little is known about the gatekeeping processes and the broader editorial governance mechanisms that helps steer scientific efforts. In this project, we will pursue an under-explored perspective (we take on editorial boards and the journals as an institutional vehicle) and apply to a specific field of academic research (Innovation Studies). We address different aspects in three steps: first, we provide a comprehensive portrait of the editorship phenomenon by probing the heterogeneous structural features of boards, which dominated by men and angloamerican editors displaying a concentration of 85% of editorial positions in 20% of the countries; second, we compare journals’ advertising materials (blurbs) with a cosine similarity measure identifying six journals with more than 80% semantic similarity with Research Policy (the leading journal) and find out that the journals can be classified into four groups; and third, we match journal blurbs with the abstracts of papers actually published disclosing that the contents from five journals would have greater interest to other outlets. Finally, an interactive tool was developed so that researchers are better empowered to compare the similarity of journals contents in the future. These research strategies presented add to the portfolio of methodologies that science policy analysts can use to systematically understand journal agendas in order to reflect on what has been accomplished and what remains to be done

Geographies of the global co-editor network in oncology

The co-editor networks of academic journals are generally examined at the journal level. This paper investigates the geographies of the global co-editor network in oncology through the lens of cities. After using different network methods to analyze the global co-editor network, we found that the network can be characterized by a core-periphery structure. The dense core is occupied by many highly interconnected cities, whereas the periphery contains many cities maintaining loose connections with the core cities. The core shows an asymmetric dual sub-core structure. The greater sub-core is constituted by Northern American cities with New York, Washington DC, Boston, Houston, and Los Angeles in the center, whereas the smaller sub-core is formed by Asian cities and centered on Tokyo, Seoul, Osaka, Beijing, and Shanghai. The European core cities do not form a well-outlined sub-core but produce a ringlike shape around the Northern American core. This structure of the co-editor network is a consequence of the prestige effect still characterizing global science. Many European and Chinese journals tend to employ Northern American editors (US-based editors in the first place) to help increase the reputation of the journal. However, US-based journals are more interested in recruiting American editors from the top-ranked national cancer centers and universities rather than outside of the country

Editorial board interlocking across the social sciences: Modelling the geographic, gender, and institutional representation within and between six academic fields

Editorial boards play a key role in the production, dissemination, and promotion of scientific knowledge. The cross-presence of scholars in different journals, known as editorial board interlocking, maps the connections between such bodies of governance. Former research on this topic is typically restricted to individual disciplines and has failed to consider the relevance of potential interlocking between related, but different academic fields. Further, although existing studies note a significant lack of diversity in editorial board representation, they mainly focus on a single dimension, such as gender or geography. This study addressed these knowledge gaps by offering a complex cross-disciplinary approach to the geographical, gender, and institutional compositions of editorial boards, with a specific emphasis on within- and between-fields editorial board interlocking. We used graph and social network analysis to examine editorial board connections between 281 top journals (13,084 members and 17,092 connections) of six disciplines: communication, psychology, political science, sociology, economics, and management. We found substantial differences in terms of field connections, ranging from sociology with 42% interlocking with other fields, to management with only 11%. Psychology is significantly less connected to the other five disciplines. The results also show a clear overrepresentation of American institutions and native English-speaking countries in all fields, with Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and New York University forming a well-connected central cluster. Although female scholars are underrepresented, there are no significant differences in terms of positioning in the network. Female scholars are even employed in more central positions than male scholars in psychology, sociology, and management. Our findings extend the literature on editorial board diversity by evidencing a significant imbalance in their gender, geographical, institutional representation, and interlocking editorship both within and between fields

Social Network Analysis of Editorial Board Interlocking Phenomena from the Perspective of Astronomy and Astrophysics Journals

Editorial board members (EBMs) of journals play a pivotal role in authentic international scientific journals. Editorial Board Interlocking (EBI) phenomenon reflects the effectiveness and importance of the scholarly journal's editorial boards in various scientific fields. The primary purpose of this paper is to conduct a Social Network Analysis (SNA) of EBI phenomena from the perspective of astronomy and astrophysics journals. The present study is applied research based on EBI, SNA, and the descriptive-analytical approach. The statistical population of this study consists of the editorial board members of all journals of astronomy and astrophysics indexed in the JCR and official journal websites. There are 1597 job positions in 67 astronomy and astrophysics journals occupied by the 1394 scholars. Data analysis shows EBI for 95 scholars and 79 organizations. "Aleksei A. Starobinsky" from Russia and the Russian Academy of Sciences, "Daniel J. Scheeres" from the United States, and the University of Colorado Boulder have the highest EBI contributions in five journals. "Daniel J. Scheeres," with a centrality of 39, has the highest degree of centrality measurement among the EBMs. The presence of more than five times as many men as women indicates that astronomy and astrophysics journals are considered "masculine" by the editorial board. The EBI phenomenon is observed in astronomy and astrophysics journals due to the limited number of peop le eligible for the editorial board. Due to EBI, a limited number of famous scholars are made macro-policies such as publishing the articles, referees selections, and the reviewing process. Astronomy and astrophysics journals have "elite" academic networks. Gender inequality exists among EBMs, and the majority of them are male. Accordingly, these journals are "men's journals.

What do editorial boards indicate about the nature, structure and directions of scholarly research?

Mestrado em Economia e Gestão de Ciência, Tecnologia e InovaçãoO output científico no que diz respeito às publicações está relativamente restrito a determinadas regiões. Países cientificamente desenvolvidos representam uma maioria significativa no que toca ao número de publicações, aquando comparados com países em desenvolvimento. Neste caso, indicadores bibliométricos são ferramentas úteis para efetuar comparações e identificar assimetrias. Revistas académicas são o método mais comum de publicação de artigos científicos e a sua importância para a disseminação de conhecimento é inquestionável. Os artigos submetidos são sujeitos a escrutínio e seleção, sendo essa função praticada pelos conselhos editoriais. Esta dissertação tem como foco o estudo dos conselhos editoriais de revistas académicas na área da economia do desenvolvimento em três regiões: África, Ásia e América Latina. Com o intuito de comparar as revistas destas três regiões com mais reputadas, revistas líder na área da economia do desenvolvimento foram igualmente analisadas. Este estudo explora uma área pouco investigada, pois embora o interesse pelas estruturas dos conselhos editoriais tenha vindo a aumentar, não foram encontrados resultados sobre revistas focadas em estudos de regiões ou países. Agrupando os editores, várias variáveis foram estudadas: género, proveniência geográfica, afiliação institucional e relevância científica, no sentido de identificar características na intermediação científica. Regiões nativas ao foco das revistas são pouco representadas, especialmente África e América Latina. A representação feminina está em minoria, representando apenas pouco mais de um quarto da população editorial. Finalmente, foi calculada uma relação positiva entre o impacto das revistas e a performance dos editores.Research output regarding publications is relatively polarized in a few regions. The majority of the published articles are written in English, but developed countries comprise an astounding difference when compared to developing ones. In this case, bibliometric indicators are used to measure these statistics, and asymmetries have been found through the time. Journals are the most common method of publication, and their importance to the dissemination of knowledge is undeniable since submitted articles are subjected to scrutiny and selection by their own internal governance. This dissertation focuses on the editorial boards' structure of leading journals covering development studies in three regions: Africa, Asia and Latin America, and in order to compare outlets covering studies in these regions with more impactful journals, leading ones from the development economics' subject field were also analysed. This study explores a relatively unknown area since although the interest about the journals' internal governance has been increasing, there are no significant findings on patterns and characteristics in the intermediation of studies focused on regions or countries. Gathering the editorial boards, several variables were studied: gender, geography, affiliation and research relevance. Native regions are found to be less represented in the respective studies' journals than expected, principally Africa and Latin America. Women editors are a minority, representing little over a quarter of the editorial population. A positive relation between the editors' relevance and impact of the journal was also found. Providing a scientometric analysis, patterns are discussed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio