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
dave wheeler for hbr
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.