Search

The author discusses the need for university departments to rebrand themselves for the advancement of bioscience research in the twenty-first century. He notes that the culture of bioscience research has changed into a blend of basic and applied research. He states that the future of bioscience research by universities would be driven by a dynamic synergy of deep curiosity, relevance informed by societal needs, and insightful creativity.

The peer review model is one of the most important tools used in science to assess the relative merit of research. We manipulated a published article to reflect one of the following four author designations: female, male, initial, and no name provided. This article was then reviewed by referees of both genders at various stages of scientific training. Name changing did not influence acceptance rates or quality ratings. Undergraduate referees were less critical than graduate students or postdoctoral researchers, independent of gender. However, female postdoctoral researchers were the most critical referees: Their rejection rates were the highest and quality ratings the lowest, regardless of the author name provided. Contrary to previous reports in the literature, there was no evidence of same-gender preferences. This study strongly suggests that female postgraduate biologists may apply different expectations to peer review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]