Elvira González-Salmón

Gender inequalities in science are widely documented, yet their persistence is often examined through isolated dimensions such as productivity, funding or publishing practices. This study provides an integrated analysis of how funding patterns, team structures and Open Access practices are associated with women’s participation in scientific production in Spain. Using large-scale bibliometric data from Web of Science (2008–2017), we analyse publications with at least one Spanish author, combining information on author gender, funding acknowledgements, authorship roles and Open Access status across five broad scientific fields. The results reveal that gender inequalities are not driven by a single mechanism, but emerge from the interaction of structural factors. Women are underrepresented in internationally funded publications and in senior authorship positions, while they appear more frequently as first authors. Mixed-gender teams consistently show more balanced participation and higher productivity for women, highlighting collaboration as a key equalising context. Open Access uptake is shaped by funding availability rather than gender, and incomplete funding information remains a major obstacle for monitoring equity and visibility. This study is particularly timely in the context of ongoing reforms in research assessment. By offering integrated, system-level evidence, it contributes to debates on responsible metrics, funding transparency and inclusive assessment practices. Rather than proposing new evaluative criteria, the findings provide diagnostic insights to support evidence-informed reforms aimed at reducing structural gender inequalities in science.

In this research article, we present the first cross-disciplinary descriptive analysis of the use of contribution statements. Our main objective is to obtain further insight on contributions by a variety of fields (Multidisciplinary, Health, Life, Physical, and Social Sciences) from the largest dataset used up to now. We examine more than 700,000 articles published between 2018 and 2023 in Elsevier and PLOS journals, in combination with bibliometric data extracted from the Scopus database. The descriptive analysis of the dataset focuses on the overall coverage of the merged data, the distribution of authorship and disciplines at paper level, and the interactions between contribution statements, author order, and disciplines. Our two main findings indicate that, on the one hand, looking at contributions and authorship order can enrich the way we understand science as a social endeavor. On the other hand, delving deeper into contributorship differences by field is key. We underscore the value of the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT) in unveiling nuanced research dynamics and offering a more equitable framework for evaluation.

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo principal analizar la evolución de la paridad de género en la ciencia española (1990-2021), haciendo un análisis por áreas de conocimiento y comparando el caso español internacionalmente, con aquellos países que lideran el Human Development Index. Utilizando datos de Dimensions y de las Naciones Unidas, el algoritmo de asignación de género WikiGenDex y diferentes técnicas de visualización de datos y estadísticas, encontramos que la situación de las mujeres investigadoras en España varía por área (alcanzando la paridad en áreas como Biomedicina y Ciencias de la Salud y estando lejos de ella en Matemáticas e Informática). Al comparar España internacionalmente encontramos que el porcentaje de mujeres investigadoras en este país es mayor a la media mundial, aunque el crecimiento de dicho porcentaje es similar al del resto de países estudiados. El artículo busca los motivos de los resultados en la especificidad del sistema científico español y se cuestiona el uso de la paridad de género como indicador único sobre la situación de la mujer en la ciencia.

There has been a notable increase in bibliometric research studying gender in academia. This narrative review aims to organize and synthesize this extensive body of work to uncover new insights into gender disparities in science. We begin by analyzing key methodological elements, including gender assignment techniques, units of analysis, and causality issues. Next, we identify and categorize the main findings of the literature into three groups: differences in academia, causes behind these differences, and their primary consequences. Finally, we point out gaps in the literature and propose new lines of inquiry to address these gaps. These proposals include more rigorous gender assignment algorithms, fostering comparability of studies, exploring a broader range of topics, and improving the interpretability and context of results when studying gender.

Ante las limitaciones encontradas en otros algoritmos de asignación de género basados en nombres, presentamos un nuevo algoritmo basado en fuentes abiertas: WikiGenDex. Este algoritmo se basa en información de Wikidata y del World Gender Name Dictionary (perteneciente a la Organización Mundial de la Propiedad Intelectual). A lo largo de la nota explicamos su mecanismo, validamos su funcionamiento, ofrecemos un ejemplo y un tutorial para usarlo con cualquier base de datos de nombres.

Resumen El mundo de la informetría ha cambiado enormemente desde 1990, año en que Leo Egghe y Ronald Rousseau publicaron por primera vez Introduction to informetrics: Quantitative methods in library, documentation and information science. En esta nota revisitamos este clásico de la informetría, con la visión puesta en el análisis de los contrastes y continuidades que encontramos entre la primera aproximación al término que propusieron estos autores, y la realidad de este campo de investigación en 2023.