B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I O N

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Editorial

Bias in the review process An important and common feature of scientific journals such as Biological Conservation is the process of single-blind external review. With this process, each submitted manuscript is initially evaluated by a Handling Editor to determine if it is appropriate for the journal. The editor sends each suitable article to two or more qualified reviewers who are permitted to know the name of the authors. Once at least two reviews have been turned in, the Handling Editor decides if the paper should be rejected, returned to the authors for major revision, accepted after minor revision, or accepted in its present form. The authors are then sent a decision letter accompanied by the comments of the reviewers, who remain anonymous. This system allows the reviewers to make objective comments without fear of confrontation with the authors. Recently Budden et al. (2008) have argued for a doubleblind system in which reviewers will not know the identity of the authors. They believe such a system will help to reduce a bias in the review system against female authors. However, before such a system is implemented, it is necessary to demonstrate that such a bias against female authors by reviewers in fact exists, because there are benefits to allowing the reviewers to know the authors’ names, such as identifying potential conflicts of interest and prior publications by the same author. Most importantly, do female authors have a lower rate of acceptance than male authors? Budden et al. (2008) do not provide this information. They only report that the percentage of articles with women as first authors increased by 8% between 1997 and 2005 in one journal, Behavioral Ecology, that implemented double-blind reviewing in 2001. The percent of first authors who are female also increased during this same period in Biological Conservation, which did not use double-blind reviewing. An independent analysis of the data of Budden et al. (2008) by Webb et al. (2008) demonstrated that this increase in the proportion of female authorship in the journal using double-blind reviewing was not statistically different from changes in the percentage of female authors in Biological Conservation and other similar journals. It is quite possible that the percent increase in female authors over time in certain journals simply reflects the increasing percentage of women submitting papers to these journals. The crucial information needed before implementing double-blind reviews is the relative acceptance rates of articles

with women and men as first authors. If it were determined that women’s papers are accepted less frequently than men’s, then this would represent possible evidence of bias against women. In fact, two studies of journals in fields of ecology and evolution found no such evidence of gender differences in acceptance rates of men and women authors (Tregenza, 2002; Whittaker, 2008). We are also presently carrying out such an investigation for articles submitted to Biological Conservation over the past four years. Although Budden et al. (2008) mainly focus on the possible bias of reviewers, a much larger potential for bias exists in the decisions made by editors before papers are sent out for review. At Biological Conservation, individual Handling Editors, who have both a regional and subject focus, reject approximately 40% of the submitted articles without review. Other journals also have such a policy of rejecting a large proportion of articles before external review. Handling Editors make these decisions because experience has taught them that these articles will not be published in the journal, even if they are sent out for review. The major reasons for immediate rejection are that the paper is not in the subject area of the journal, the paper is not sufficiently novel or thorough, and the paper is not well written or organized. Overall, more papers are rejected by the Handling Editors without review than are rejected following review. Consequently if one of the Handling Editors had a bias against women authors, or any other group or topic for that matter, such as authors from California or papers about butterflies, then that could substantially affect the acceptance rate of that group or topic. While we investigate this issue of gender bias, we are also considering other issues that might be perceived as unfair in the review process. One area of concern relates to submissions from different countries. Acceptance rates are relatively high from major English speaking countries, such as the United States (30%), the United Kingdom (31%), Australia (34%), and Canada (47%). The acceptance rates are lower for Western European countries where English is not the main language such as Germany (20%), Spain (20%), Italy (21%), and France (24%). Acceptance rates are dramatically lower for the two rising economic powers of China (2%) and India (4%), where scientists are under increasing pressure to publish in international journals. A wide range of variation in acceptance rates can be seen just in Latin America, with major differences among Argentina (0%), Brazil (13%), and Mexico (28%). So while researchers, including the editors of this

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journal, will continue to investigate the possible existence of biases in acceptance rates between men and women, our colleagues from many developing countries, and even developed countries where English is not the main language, are experiencing far greater difficulties in publishing in international journals. If anyone is looking for a substantial and immediate problem to address, one need only to think of ways to assist our scientific colleagues from China, India, and other countries in overcoming the barriers that they face in publishing in international journals. One suggestion would be for scientists from English speaking countries to help their colleagues from non-English speaking countries prepare their papers for publication. This would almost certainly increase the chance of acceptance, and also inform the wider scientific community about conservation issues facing under-represented countries. The journal Biological Conservation, as well as other journals published by Elsevier, is committed to having a fair reviewing process. We will continue to assess sources of bias, and we will take actions to improve the process when there is evidence of bias. These actions might include double-blind reviewing, or perhaps having the authors just use initials for their first names. However, the effectiveness of such changes would need to be first demonstrated.

R E F E R E N C E S

Budden, A.E., Tregenza, T., Aarssen, L.W., Koricheva, J., Leimu, R., Lortie, C.J., 2008. Double-blind review favours increased

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representation of female authors. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 23, 4–6. Tregenza, T., 2002. Gender bias in the refereeing process? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 17, 349–350. Webb, T.J., O’Hara, B., Freckleton, R.P., 2008. Does double-blind review benefit female authors? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 23, 351–353. Whittaker, R.J., 2008. Journal review and gender equality: a critical comment on Budden et al. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 23, 478–479.

Richard B. Primack Editor in Chief Biology Department, Boston University, 5 Cummington Street Boston, MA 02215, United States E-mail address: [email protected] Rob Marrs Former Editor in Chief and Current Editor Applied Vegetation Dynamics Laboratory, School of Biological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZB, United Kingdom

0006-3207/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2008.09.016