Exploring Epistemic Communities : A Gendered Perspective on Scientific Collaboration

Epistemic communities have been identified and studied through collaboration and citation analyses. One issue that has received increasing calls for research in this area is the role of gender, especially in light of significant variation in participation and productivity along gender lines. Accordingly, we argue for the active incorporation of gender as a central consideration in analyses aimed at assessing epistemic communities and their impact at individual, national, and international levels of analysis. Drawing on various theoretical perspectives and considering a range of empirical findings, directions for research are delineated for assessing gender differentiation in collaboration productivity and network participation, particularly in terms of scientific discipline, institutional referents, and professional age and status, along with socio-cultural and political characteristics. The development of gender-specific metrics at different levels of aggregation and their broader analytical incorporation are discussed relative to assessments of gender distributional inequities and network properties. We suggest that allowing for various factors dictated by individual circumstances and field and network conditions can lead to improved contextual consideration and help to fill gaps in our knowledge to provide better and more informed understandings about the productivity and career patterns of women scientists