Request a woman scientist: A database for diversifying the public face of science

A Decade of GigaScience: Women in Science: Past, Present, and Future

Over the last decade, women have made decisive advances in increasing equality in science, technology, engineering, and medicine (STEM), but they still do not rival that of men. Many mechanisms to reduce gender discrimination have been addressed; however, little to nothing has been done to tackle the differences in the amount of time women spend on responsibilities at home. This has never been more apparent than during the COVID-19 pandemic. After a decade of advances promoting women, the last two years have seen these advances halted, and the long-term implications for women in STEM will be substantial. Moving forward, career advancement and funding mechanisms need to be adjusted to not just help women catch up, but to become a permanent support mechanism for women in the workplace. The higher amount of responsibilities at home and lack of support for women is not reserved for times of international upheaval: it has just become more apparent.

Assessing gage: an online tool for improving gender visibility in STEMM

Women continue to be underrepresented and less visible in the fields of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM). 500 Women Scientists created and launched in January 2018 a global (>140 countries to date), online, open-access directory of women in STEMM fields. This directory—recently renamed gage—now also includes gender diverse persons (i.e., additional underrepresented genders) in STEMM fields. The purpose of the directory is to make these scientists’ expertise easier to locate and access for conference organizers, journalists, policy makers, educators, and others. Here, we undertake an assessment of the directory using surveys, Google Analytics, and focus groups to understand its efficacy and direction to date and identify future improvements we pledge to undertake. Through this assessment—conducted externally and in accordance with privacy protocols by Concolor Research—we identified who and how people are using our directory, why people signed up to be a resource, and areas for improvement. Through such assessment, we can learn how to enhance the directory’s efficacy and our broader efforts to boost the visibility of underrepresented people in STEMM.

The authorship in nursing literature: an against trend?

BACKGROUND AND AIM OF THE WORK

Women graduated and engaged in the scientific world are in increasing numbers. The present study aimed to analyze the gender difference in nursing scientific publication and to understand the trend in nursing science is the same or different to that reported in other scientific disciplines.

METHODS

We considered the first name in the authorship of the highest impacted factor journals related of year 2019 in the Web of Science database for the period 2015-2019, as: the International Journal of Nursing Studies (IJNS) and the Nursing Outlook (NO). Considering the proposed economic classification of the "World bank", weassessed the gender of the first authors searched with the relative degree of wealth of their countries thanks to the chi square test.

RESULTS

From 1st January 2015 to 31st December 2019 a total of 1171 first authors were identified. Of these, 776 (66.27%) belonged to the IJNS and 395 (33.73%) to the NO. The female gender was most representative than the male gender into two journals. In fact, 982 (83.9%) citations belong to female researchers while 189 (16.1%) citations belong to male researchers. However, the same trend is not evaluated in the Italian scenario where the male gender predominates over the female one in scientific production.

CONCLUSIONS

Nursing scientific production shows a counter trend compared to other scientific disciplines, highlighting a predominance of the female sex over the male one. This difference is more pronounced in the more economically developed countries.

Proceedings from the Neurotherapeutics Symposium on Neurological Emergencies: Shaping the Future of Neurocritical Care

Effective treatment options for patients with life-threatening neurological disorders are limited. To address this unmet need, high-impact translational research is essential for the advancement and development of novel therapeutic approaches in neurocritical care. "The Neurotherapeutics Symposium 2019-Neurological Emergencies" conference, held in Rochester, New York, in June 2019, was designed to accelerate translation of neurocritical care research via transdisciplinary team science and diversity enhancement. Diversity excellence in the neuroscience workforce brings innovative and creative perspectives, and team science broadens the scientific approach by incorporating views from multiple stakeholders. Both are essential components needed to address complex scientific questions. Under represented minorities and women were involved in the organization of the conference and accounted for 30-40% of speakers, moderators, and attendees. Participants represented a diverse group of stakeholders committed to translational research. Topics discussed at the conference included acute ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes, neurogenic respiratory dysregulation, seizures and status epilepticus, brain telemetry, neuroprognostication, disorders of consciousness, and multimodal monitoring. In these proceedings, we summarize the topics covered at the conference and suggest the groundwork for future high-yield research in neurologic emergencies.