Working groups, gender and publication impact of Canada’s ecology and evolution faculty

A critical part of science is the extraction of general principles by synthesizing results from many different studies or disciplines. In the fields of ecology and evolution, a popular method to conduct synthesis science is in working groups – that is, research collaborations based around intensive week-long meetings. We present in this report an analysis of the impact of working group participation and gender on the publication impact of ecology and evolution faculty at Canadian universities who were research active over the last three decades (N=1408). Women are underrepresented in this research population relative to the general population, and even the Canadian faculty population. Participation in working groups not only benefits science, but also benefits the researchers involved by accelerating the temporal increase in their H-index. However, this benefit is particularly driven by senior male researchers. The effect is weaker for female researchers and even negative for researchers within 4 years of their PhD. However, gender does not affect current participation rates in working groups, nor reported indirect benefits – such as future collaborations, funding and data resources. The results of this study suggest that working groups can act as career catalysts for researchers, but that – as in many areas of science – there are challenging issues of equity that require action. Because the H-index is a cumulative measure, gender inequities from before the turn of the millenium may still be distorting the perceived publication impact of today’s research-active faculty.