Postdoctoral students get more time for equipment when applications are anonymized

Researchers' access to neutron rays at the beginning of their career increased from 61% to 78% at one Australian facility.

More doctoral students provided access to complex scientific tools when the Australian facility made the application process anonymous1.

The results of the intervention reported in Research Evaluation this month are the latest example of how the introduction of a blind review, in which the identities of applicants are not disclosed, can reduce systemic bias.

A blind look shifts close attention from the scientist to science, says Priyamvada Natarajan, an astrophysicist-theoretician at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who participated in similar efforts on the NASA Hubble Space Telescope. "If the idea is original and brilliant, it doesn't matter who wrote it," she says. "Everyone should have a fair chance."

The latest study suggests that reviewers may have a "prestigious bias" towards experienced or well-known researchers, says John Carpenter, who studies protoplanetary disks at the ALMA Joint Observatory in Santiago. This may lead to the fact that these researchers will be offered time for equipment at the expense of their less experienced peers. The effect penetrates through the fields, says Carpenter, who analyzed data on similar efforts in Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA). "It's not just telescopes."

Geoteric system repair

Data on applications for the use of the Hubble Space Telescope and ALMA2 showed that women and less experienced candidates received more time after the introduction of a blind view. Over the past few years since then, this practice has become more widespread, especially in observatories, including the James Webb Space Telescope and the telescopes of the European Southern Observatory in northern Chile.

Isabel Kingsley, a study of gender equality previously conducted at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who is currently working at SAGE, an Australian initiative that advocates for equality and diversity in education and research, wanted to know if such interventions could work in a number of scientific sites.

She and her colleagues began testing at four Australian facilities that operate optical and radio telescopes, neutron beam devices and high-performance computing systems. In applications for the use of resources, applicants were asked not to indicate their names and affiliation. One institution did not dare to fully participate in the anonymization and decided to include the first initials and surnames of the applicants in the back of the applications.

The researchers analyzed the results of more than 4,500 applications, including five years before the intervention and two years after it.

Postdoctoral promotion

The Australian Neutron Scattering Center in Lucas Heights operates 15 neutron devices and was one of two facilities that collected data during the career stage. After the introduction of blind vision, success rates for doctoral students increased from 61% to 78%. Success rates for graduate students, graduate students and undergraduates remained stable, but for more experienced researchers they decreased from 61% to 50%. In another institution that collected data on the career stage, the time of postdoctoral students on the equipment remained about 75%.

The results show that "anonymization can level the playing field" and help open the doors, says Kingsley. And since researchers in the early stages of their careers tend to be more diverse in terms of their gender and cultural background, improving their results contributes to the preservation of diverse scientific talents, she says.

Prior to the intervention that took place in 2020, the researchers did not identify any noticeable gender gaps in the four institutions. And this gender equality was preserved after the intervention.

Many brilliant young researchers leave research in the same way as they are ready to make an original contribution to their fields, says Natarajan. According to her, interventions that give them expanded access to important scientific facilities will encourage them to stay close.

The results are convincing, but Carpenter notes that it is difficult to attribute the observed surge directly to the intervention, because unknown factors could affect the results.

Kingsley says that all four institutions decided to continue the implementation of blind visibility, including the one that initially used only partial anonymization. As a result of the study, "they could see the value and now use it".