01337nas a2200181   4500000000100000008004100001260000900042100001800051700002200069700001700091700002100108245004100129856005800170300001100228490000600239520089600245022001401141       2017                            d  c20171 aMarkus Helmer1 aManuel Schottdorf1 aAndreas Neef1 aDemian Battaglia00aGender bias in scholarly peer review  uhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5360442/  ae217180 v63 aPeer review is the cornerstone of scholarly publishing and it is essential that peer reviewers are appointed on the basis of their expertise alone. However, it is difficult to check for any bias in the peer-review process because the identity of peer reviewers generally remains confidential. Here, using public information about the identities of 9000 editors and 43000 reviewers from the Frontiers series of journals, we show that women are underrepresented in the peer-review process, that editors of both genders operate with substantial same-gender preference (homophily), and that the mechanisms of this homophily are gender-dependent. We also show that homophily will persist even if numerical parity between genders is reached, highlighting the need for increased efforts to combat subtler forms of gender bias in scholarly publishing., DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.21718.001  a2050-084X