Kiran Gok Lune Lee

University of Sheffield

I am an evolutionary biologist with interests in conservation genetics, behavioural ecology and open science practises. I received my bachelor’s from University College L ondon , UK, Master’s at University of Groningen, Netherlands and am currently working on my PhD at the University of Sheffield, UK, researching the genomics of inbreeding in island-confined Seychelles warblers. My Master’s was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic conditions, so I had to be creative for my research project as I could not rely on lab work, field work or in- person supervision. During this period, I learned about open research practices when undertaking a literature review and meta-analysis. I consider open science to be vital for research integrity and knowledge generation.
Photo credit: Michael Sau On Lee

All Sessions by Kiran Gok Lune Lee

  • Day 3

    June 29, 2023 (CEST)

  • 11:45  - 12:00
    Academic success is commonly evaluated by the number of published articles. Yet, focusing on this single metric selects against female academics with biased gender roles both within households and within academic institution. Novel social conditions induced by the COVID19 pandemic likely exacerbated this gender-bias if female academics took on heavier loads of caregiving, domestic, service and teaching tasks. We investigate the overall pandemic effect on the gender gap in research productivity through a systematic review and meta-analysis of 130 effect sizes from 55 published articles across scientific disciplines.

    We also investigate how research field, breadth of gender gap before the pandemic, and authorship position influence this effect. We found that the gender gap in research productivity within academia has overall increased by 5% according to the numbers of publications and submissions during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in social sciences and medicine, fields that were previously nearest to being gender equal, with less or no change in natural science fields. We did not detect an influence of authorship position.

    Based on our results, we call attention to the fact that traditional metrics of research productivity such as numbers of publications and submissions have disproportionately worsened for women researchers. Potentially, this could feedback into grant-allocation/tenure/promotion/hiring decisions, worsening academia’s “leaky pipeline”. The script and dataset in our systematic review and meta-analysis enables monitoring of longer-term effects by incorporating new research on the topic as and when it becomes available.

    Authors:
    Kiran Gok Lune Lee1,2, Hannah Dugdale1, Adele Mennerat3, Dieter Lukas4, Antica Culina5,6
    Organisation(s): 1: Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands; 2: Department of Animal & Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK; 3: Department of Biological Sciences, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway; 4: Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany; 5: Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Zagreb, Croatia; 6: Netherlands Institute of Ecology



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Kiran Gok Lune Lee