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Take a look at your typical research laboratory and you are likely to see a small representation of UN-member countries. During my time as a graduate student studying vascular development in the lab of Dr Dan Turnbull, at NYU, there was a strong representation of researchers from Canada, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Poland, Puerto Rico (technically part of the US), and the US. Although I would’ve liked the gender split to be 50/50, we had a very respectable 60/40 split of men to women. It was precisely this diversity that initially attracted me to science and convinced me that, as a scientist, I would be treated with respect regardless of my ethnicity, nationality or heritage. However, this is but a tiny sampling of the millions of active scientists that populate our research labs. In fact, women and ethnic minorities constitute a lower percentage of the overall science and engineering workforce than of science and engineering degree recipients who recently joined the workforce; the same applies for people with disabilities, regardless of when disabilities were acquired ^[1].

While much has been written about the lack of gender, race and physical ability, diversity in science this is only part of the picture. During our recent tour of Mexican universities and research institutes (UNAM, UAM, INMEGEN, CINVESTAV-LANGEBIO, Hospital General de Mexico, Hospital Infantil de Mexico, Instituto Nacional de Nutricion) one overarching theme was the relative lack of international recognition for research performed in Mexico, beyond a local sphere of influence. Many reasons were given for this including the publication of many articles in local journals with relatively small reach beyond Latin America – 43 are registered with Thomson ISI out of which only 17 are currently active ^[2,3] . But even for those that do publish in internationally recognized high impact journals, there is a perceived bias against their work, even when the country ranks 28th in the world in terms of citable scientific documents ^[4]. Little has been written on the subject but certain questions arise:

Is research from the UNAM judged on a different scale even if the university ranks as third in Ibero-America in terms of research output as measured by papers published? ^[5]

Does a researcher from a laboratory in mainland US or the UK really have a better chance of being published in a high impact journal just based on their geographic location or university affiliation?

In the third installment of our #F1000Talks TweetChat, we will be asking these and many other questions relating to scientist and research diversity in terms of race, gender and physical ability. We will also touch upon issues that may affect the perception of research performed in countries outside the US, UK, and other research powerhouses.

We look forward to an engaging conversation on this very important topic!

Where: The chat will be hosted by @F1000Research, using the hashtag #F1000Talks.
When: March 19th, 1pm EST/5pm GMT
Who: Our special guests will be Omair Taibh (@amrush), Caleph Wilson (@HeyDrWilson), Monica Feiliu-Mojer (@moefeliu; www.cienciapr.org) and Erin McKiernan (@emckiernan13)
Format: 15mins of directed questions with the remainder of the time (15mins) open for conversation by all participants.

How to participate?

We will host the conversation from our @F1000Research Twitter account. I (Cesar Berrios, Outreach Director, @Cesar_F1000) will be your host and our moderator will be Cindy Chen, Associate Director (@cchen7). However, it’s up to you as participants to determine the direction of the conversation so your participation is crucial for a productive and engaging event. Don’t worry if you get there a little late or have to jump off twitter a little early – you can dictate your own pace and in fact we encourage the conversation to continue even after the event has ended! Please remember to be respectful of others and by all means, have fun!

References

1. https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/2013/pdf/nsf13304_digest.pdf
2. https://www.siicyt.gob.mx/siicyt/docs/Estadisticas3/Informe2010/4_INFORME_2010_CAPIII.pdf
3. https://wokinfo.com/products_tools/multidisciplinary/webofscience/contentexp/la/
4. https://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php
5. https://www.scimagoir.com/pdf/iber/SIR%20Iber%202014%20HE.pdf