Lung cancer researchers, 2008-2013: their sex and ethnicity.

Grant Lewison,Richard Sullivan,Richard Webber,Philip Roe

doi:10.1007/s11192-015-1785-1

Grant Lewison, Richard Sullivan + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-015-1785-1

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Journal: Scientometrics	Publication Date: Nov 12, 2015
Citations: 14	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: King's College London, Guy's Hospital

Abstract

This paper describes the process by which almost all authors of papers in the Web of Science (WoS) can be characterised by their sex and ethnicity or national background, based on their names. These are compared with two large databases of surnames and given names to determine to which of some 160 different ethnic groups they are most likely to belong. Since 2008 the authors of WoS papers are tagged with their addresses, and many have their given names if they appear on the paper, so the workforce composition of each country can be determined. Conversely, the current location of members of particular ethnic groups can be found. This will show the extent of a country’s “brain drain”, if any. Key results are shown for one subject area, and inter alia it appears that the majority of researchers of Indian origin who are active in lung cancer research are working in the USA. But East Asians (Chinese, Japanese and Koreans) tend to stay in their country of birth.

Highlights

There is continuing research interest in the sex and ethnic composition of research personnel
This paper describes the process by which almost all authors of papers in the Web of Science (WoS) can be characterised by their sex and ethnicity or national background, based on their names
Key results are shown for one subject area, and inter alia it appears that the majority of researchers of Indian origin who are active in lung cancer research are working in the USA

Summary

Introduction

There is continuing research interest in the sex and ethnic composition of research personnel. China has for some time sought to encourage Chinese researchers who have gone abroad to return (Normile 2006; Xin 2009), but it is seeking foreigners who can make a distinctive contribution (Qiu 2011) It appears that East Asia may be making bigger efforts than Europe and the USA to attract foreign researchers. US important for science policy, including the monitoring of the changing roles and positions of women in research and the extent to which a country is welcoming to researchers from abroad and helps them to integrate It builds on the methods described earlier (Roe et al 2014) but allows all the authors on multi-national papers to be classified, and is applicable to all the countries represented in the subject area. Some results are given for other countries, because the database listed all countries contributing to lung cancer research, and researchers with names characteristic of 90 different countries

Methodology

Findings

Discussion