Representation of women in sport sciences research, publications, and editorial leadership positions: are we moving forward?

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. Elena Martinez-Rosales was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education (FPU18/01107) . Alba Hernandez-Martinez was supported by the Plan Propio, Gerty Cori program from the University of Almeria, Spain. Irene Esteban-Cornejo was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (RTI2018-095284-J-100) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (RYC2019-027287-I) . Alberto Soriano-Maldonado was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (ref. RTI2018-093302-A-I00) .Objectives: We determined the representation of women in sport sciences research leadership by assessing the proportion of women in (i) leading authorship positions of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published from January 2000 to September 2020 in sport sciences journals and (ii) editorial boards of these journals as of September 2020. Design: Review. Methods: We searched PubMed for RCTs published from January 1, 2000, to September 1, 2020, in a representative sample of the top sport sciences journals and identified the sex of first and senior authors through photographs, sex pronouns, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, institutional, or other profiles. This strategy was also used to identify the sex of the editorial board members from the selected journals. Results: A total of 4841 articles published in 14 journals, and 1418 editors, were analyzed. The average proportions of female first and senior authorship were 24.8% and 16.8%, respectively. The percentage of female first authorship increased by ~0.5% annually (β=0.702; B=0.46, 95% CI=0.24 to 0.68, p < 0.001) from2000 to 2020, while the percentage of female senior authorship did not change over time (β = 0.274; B = 0.15, 95% CI = −0.102 to 0.398, p = 0.230). Among the editorial boards' positions, 19.7% were occupied by women. None of the editors-in-chief of the selected journals were women. Conclusions:Women are markedly underrepresented in leading authorship and editorial board positions in sport sciences, despite a ~0.5% annual increase in female first authorship in the past two decades. The mechanisms underlying these findings and the actions needed to reduce potential gender inequalities warrant further research.Spanish Government FPU18/01107University of Almeria, SpainSpanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness RTI2018-095284-J-100Spanish Government RYC2019-027287-ISpanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities RTI2018-093302-A-I0