Are academic journals impartial? While many would suggest that academic journals work for the advancement of knowledge and science, we show this is not always the case. In a recent study, we find that two international relations (IR) journals favor articles written by authors who share the journal’s institutional affiliation. We term this phenomenon “academic in-group bias.”
Do Academic Journals Favor Researchers from Their Own Institutions?
A study of Harvard, MIT, and Princeton.
February 27, 2018
Summary.
People tend to favor their group, whether it is their close family, their hometown, or their ethnic group. A new study suggests the same may be true in academia. Researchers looked at papers published in a selection of journals. When the journal had an affiliation with a university, they found that the papers published by academics from that university were less likely to be cited. Since citations are a marker of quality, this could mean that the journal is lowering its standards to favor academics from its own institution.