Excluding the deserving: failing to assign credit when updating systematic reviews

Lunch Seminar in presence

Rossella Salandra
School of Management, University of Bath, UK

There are well-documented disparities in the number of minority groups’ scientists — such as female and racial minority communities’ researchers — mentioned in scientific outputs. These disparities might be the result of productivity differences (contribution), or they might be due to minority groups’ contributions not being acknowledged (attribution). We consider scientists contributing to systematic reviews of healthcare interventions published by Cochrane and leverage a unique attribution of credit guidance to explore whether deserving scientists are properly credited in the reviews’ acknowledgements (potential omission bias in the acknowledgements). We document some disparities in the attribution of credit in this setting, providing evidence that the lack of recognition of minority groups’ scientists is also noticeable through omission bias in the acknowledgements.

Rossella Salandra is an Associate Professor in the School of Management at the University of Bath.  She holds a PhD in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Imperial College Business School and an MSc in Industrial Management Engineering from the University of Padua.  Her academic work has focused on how research is carried out, disseminated, and evaluated. For example, she has developed expertise and interest in systems to govern the quality of healthcare evidence and how to incorporate high-quality and useful research into academic literature and decision-making. She has also studied university-industry collaboration, public investment in R&D and academics’ attitudes towards delivering socio-economic impact. Before joining academia, she worked in industry for seven years, acquiring professional knowledge in business analytics, market research and consulting.

Please click here to register