Women as editors-in-chief of environmental science journals [version 1; peer review: 2 approved with reservations]

This research note describes an analysis regarding the role of women as editors-in-chief of environmental science journals. The list of journals analyzed was obtained from the database of “Web of Science”, published in 2015. This database does not include information on the name or gender of the editors-in-chief of journals, so a web search was performed. The results show that gender inequality is present in this important field of science. Causes of this bias merit more and profound research. The bias observed may not apply to journals of others areas of science.


References Introduction
Gender bias has been observed in several aspects of science, mainly in the authorship of scientific papers, first author position, grants and employment 1,2 . It is possible that this bias is present for other important positions in science, such as the editorial positions in scientific journals. With this in mind, we determined the percentage of women who are editors-in-chief of environmental science journals.

Methods
The list of journals was obtained from the 2015 Thomson Reuters Web of Science database, which groups journals by impact factor and area of scientific expertise. We chose journals grouped into environmental science. Since the name and gender of the editor-inchief is not reported in this database, a web search was performed. The name of the editor-in-chief was obtained from the respective web page of the journal. In cases where it was not possible to identify the gender with the name only, a more extensive web search was performed. The criteria used to identify the gender was a headshot on the website of the respective institution, a Researchgate profile, or the journal that he or she directs. Differences between genders and amongst groups of journals were determined with a chi-square test. NCSS version 11 was used for statistical analysis.

Results and discussion
A total of 103 environmental science journals were analyzed. Of these, 22 journals had an impact factor (IF) < 1; 50 journals had an IF between 1-2; and 31 journals had IF > 2. For 4 journals, it was not possible to identify the gender of the editor-in-chief. The list of journals analyzed is available as a dataset. Overall, the percentage of women that were editors-in-chief was 21.6% (Table 1). This percentage was different according to the IF of the journals. In journals with low IF, the percentage of women as editors-in-chief was 33.3%, in journals with IF between 1-2, this percentage was 21.6%, and in journals with IF > 2, the percentage was 14.9%. The decreasing trend was statistically significant.
Women are underrepresented as editors-in-chief of environmental science journals and suggests a gender bias. Several factors that could contribute to underrepresentation of women in science have been previously suggested by other authors and could explain this observation 3 . Childbearing, forming a family, gender expectations, lifestyle choices and career preferences are among these factors. Other factor could be the scientific area. The percentage of women as editors-in-chiefs probably is major in areas where their participation is more active, so this analysis should be made with other types of journals that specialize on other fields of science. Finally, more studies that corroborate and identify causes of this outcome are needed.

Competing interests
No competing interests were disclosed.

Grant information
The author(s) declared that no grants were involved in supporting this work.

Karin Amrein
Division of Endocrinology and Diabetology, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria In a short research note, Yeverino-Gutierrez and colleagues report interesting data on the representation of women as editors in chief in environmental science journals.
A few major aspects should be clarified: In the abstract, the authors should state some specific results of their analysis (no. of journals, no. of editors, % female etc.)

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The manuscript is indeed very short and would benefit from some greater detail for all sections.

If applicable, is the statistical analysis and its interpretation appropriate? Partly
Are all the source data underlying the results available to ensure full reproducibility? Yes

Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the results? Partly
Competing Interests: No competing interests were disclosed.
I confirm that I have read this submission and believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard, however I have significant reservations, as outlined above.
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