Imperial College London
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DrMatthewHarris

Faculty of Medicine, School of Public Health

Clinical Senior Lecturer in Public Health
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7452m.harris

 
 
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Location

 

Reynolds BuildingCharing Cross Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Skopec:2020:10.1186/s41073-019-0088-0,
author = {Skopec, M and Issa, H and Reed, J and Harris, M},
doi = {10.1186/s41073-019-0088-0},
journal = {Research Integrity and Peer Review},
pages = {1--14},
title = {The role of geographic bias in knowledge diffusion: a systematic review and narrative synthesis},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41073-019-0088-0},
volume = {5},
year = {2020}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Background: Descriptive studies examining publication rates and citation counts demonstrate a geographic skew towards high-income countries (HIC) and research from low- or middle-income countries (LMICs) is generally underrepresented. This has been suggested to be due in part to reviewers’ and editors’ preference toward HIC sources, however, in the absence of controlled studies it is impossible to assert whether there is bias or whether variations in the quality or relevance of the articles being reviewed explains the geographic divide. This study synthesizes the evidence from randomized and controlled studies that explore geographic bias in the peer review process. Methods: A systematic review was conducted to identify research studies that explicitly explore the role of geographic bias in the assessment of the quality of research articles. Only randomized and controlled studies were included in the review. Five databases were searched to locate relevant articles. A narrative synthesis of included articles was performed to identify common findings.Results: The systematic literature search yielded 3,501 titles from which twelve full texts were reviewed, and a further eight were identified through searching reference lists of the full texts. Of these articles, only three were randomized and controlled studies that examined variants of geographic bias. One study found that abstracts attributed to HIC sources elicited a higher review score regarding relevance of the research and likelihood to recommend the research to a colleague, than did abstracts attributed to LIC sources. Another study found that the predicted odds of acceptance for a submission to a computer science conference was statistically significantly higher for submissions from a “Top University.” Two of the studies showed the presence of geographic bias between articles from “high” or “low” prestige institutions. Conclusions: Two of the three included studie
AU  - Skopec,M
AU  - Issa,H
AU  - Reed,J
AU  - Harris,M
DO  - 10.1186/s41073-019-0088-0
EP  - 14
PY  - 2020///
SN  - 2058-8615
SP  - 1
TI  - The role of geographic bias in knowledge diffusion: a systematic review and narrative synthesis
T2  - Research Integrity and Peer Review
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41073-019-0088-0
UR  - https://researchintegrityjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41073-019-0088-0
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/75378
VL  - 5
ER  -
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