PONE-D-20-37631

Research policies and scientific production: A study of 94 Peruvian universities

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Millones-Gómez,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 17 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

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• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Isabel Novo-Cortí

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments:

This paper's topic seems to be interesting, but it needs a deep revision, particularly for the theoretical background. Besides, the authors must properly justify the method and its convenience and fitness in this context. The comments of both reviewers point to this weakness of this paper. A major revision is necessary to achieve the academic standards of PLOS ONE.

I strongly recommend to the authors reading the reviewers' recommendations carefully and following their advice and suggestions.

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors’ analysis of the influence of research policies on the scientific production of Peruvian universities was interesting, but several important issues need revision.

1. Firstly, an improvement of this article is adding a section about the literature review of the relevant publications (books, scholarly articles and any other sources) relevant to this topic. In this case, as a recommendation, you may have a look at the article: Acosta Roa, E. R., Marin Velasquez, T. D., & Gonzales Caycho, A. M. (2020). Policies for scientific production in Latin America: Peru, a case study. Revista Ciencias Pedagogicas E Innovacion, 8(1), 62–69. https://doi.org/10.26423/rcpi.v8i1.350.

2. The choice of using variables from a specific year needs to be explained (for instance, why did the authors choose the scientific production from 2016 as an independent variable instead of using the scientific production from 2018?).

3. Please provide a justification for using this methodology and link it to other studies that used the same method.

4. Although the section with the interpretation of the results is lengthy, some coefficients should be explained better (for example, in Table 4 what does it mean the effect of the variable entitled Type of management on the number of RENACYT researchers?).

5. There are several errors in the text (on page 6, the link with the source of the research policies is not working). Also, please check the punctuation (for example, on page 7 in the paragraph about the classification of research policies) and pay attention to the repetitions (the last paragraph from page 12 is redundant since it has similar ideas presented in the last paragraph from page 11).

6. The section with the conclusions seems to be a reiteration of the sections about results and discussion plus several recommendations. An improvement will be to state in a more convincing way the significance of your contribution to scientific research.

Reviewer #2: RESEARCH POLICIES AND SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTION: A STUDY OF 94 PERUVIAN UNIVERSITIES

Authorss: P. A. MILLONES G. (U. Wiener y UNMSM), J. Yangali (U. Wiener), C. Arispe (U. Wiener), O. Rivera (U. Wiener), K. Calla (U. Wiener), M. Requena (UNMSM) y C. Minchón (U. Nacional de Trujillo).

1 ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

- I am surprised about the number of them: 8.

- Most of them are top professionals. Still they are mostly from medicine areas and teaching in universities. It may be an advantage to learn about the institutions. Although it may bias their view about possibilities of academic research in other non-medicine disciplines.

2 PROVIDE THE EDITORS WITH AN EXPERT OPINION REGARDING:

- THE VALIDITY OF THE MANUSCRIPT:

I consider this is an interesting topic and the paper is pertinent.

- THE QUALITY OF THE MANUSCRIPT:

This is a good paper, although appears to be basic. Being eight authors, they may include a wide discussion of the importance of the research for countries like Peru.

I would like to see more discussion about te importance of the topic at least in Latin America

I think it is key for this paper to say something about the comparison of universities with diverse offer of careers and research possibilities.

- SUPPLY AUTHORS WITH EXPLICIT FEEDBACK ON HOW TO IMPROVE THEIR PAPERS, SO THAT THEY WILL BE ACCEPTABLE FOR PUBLICATION IN PLOS ONE. �

The authors might improve the theoretical and/or empirical importance of the topic under study.

The long list of references is not used for a good discussion in the initial sections. What is the state of the art in this topic? Why is key for the development of a country to count on good research production, moreover in Peru?

Also, some arguments must be included about the pertinence o using linear regression models to test such implicit hypothesis in this study.

Additional comments and suggestions are included at the end of this report.

3 KEY ISSUES TO ANSWER:

• What are the main claims of the paper and how significant are they for the discipline?

As much as I understand, this paper claims “research policies influence on the scientific production of Universities”. This is a pertinent but I think too general claim.

• Are the claims properly placed in the context of the previous literature? Have the authors treated the literature fairly?

- It would be useful to discuss some literature, ietiher in theoretical or moreover in empirical terms. References about how similar studies are carried on for other countries would help to better understand the model proposed. The Latin American experience might help, mainly the experience of countries similar to Peru

- Some literature review may help to discuss who make the decisions about the research policies and how those selected indicators of funding and human capital represent those decisions

- Also some literature review would be pertinent to understand how the differences in the career offers may influence in the scientific outcomes.

• Do the data and analyses fully support the claims? If not, what other evidence is required?

It is not clear for me the data used in the analysis. I know the Sunedu y Concytec provide detailed data for universities about some of the variables. Still I assume the authors may have completed their database with institutional information from the universities studied.

According to the methodology applied, I think the results are consistent and significant. Provided that the endogeneous and exogeneous data are mostly quantitative.

• PLOS ONE encourages authors to publish detailed protocols and algorithms as supporting information online. Do any particular methods used in the manuscript warrant such treatment? If a protocol is already provided, for example for a randomized controlled trial, are there any important deviations from it? If so, have the authors explained adequately why the deviations occurred?

I would ask about the main sources of the detailed data used about the human capital and research funding policies by each university included in the analysis (Table 1).

• If the paper is considered unsuitable for publication in its present form, does the study itself show sufficient potential that the authors should be encouraged to resubmit a revised version?

I consider that if previous observations are answered, the paper might be published. There are few efforts and it might contribute to continue studies like this, for enriching the research policies in our countries.

• Are original data deposited in appropriate repositories and accession/version numbers provided for genes, proteins, mutants, diseases, etc.?

Not applicable for this case

• Are details of the methodology sufficient to allow the experiments to be reproduced?

As indicated previously, data availability must be discussed explicitly.

• Is the manuscript well organized and written clearly enough to be accessible to non-specialists?

Yes, in general terms. Still, some edition observations and suggestions:

o The first sections might quote explicitly authors and citations, to know how far the proposals are based on previous contributions.

o Tables must have some reference about the specific source of data used, and it is important in each table.

o More discussion after the results, referring how far the results of each table helps to improve the research outcomes in Peru

o The final discussion is more referred to the policy institutions and authorities which is fine. Still some of these results have also being influenced by the own decisions of individual universities and authorities. It would be helpful to indicate such observations.

o The References section is poorly presented. At least, the section might present authors under alphabetical order of their last names.

4 FINAL COMMENT

Although confidential comments to the editors are respected, any remarks that might help to strengthen the paper should be directed to the authors themselves.

From my view, because it is a muldisciplinary study about research in higher education institutions, it is important that the study be published after those previous observations.

PROF. JANINA LEÓN CASTILLO

Departamento de Economía – Jefa

Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú

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If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Janina V. Leon Castillo

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PONE-D-20-37631R1

Research policies and scientific production: A study of 94 Peruvian universities

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Millones-Gómez,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 11 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Isabel Novo-Cortí

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

The new version of the paper has clearly been improved. Nevertheless, the authors should fix some minor issues, following the reviewers' suggestions.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors submitted an improved version of their article. Although I expected to see an additional section about the literature review, I suppose that the relevant publications on this subject have already been mentioned in the introduction. Besides, to control for heteroskedasticity, the authors should report if the standard error of the regressions are robust. Also, some spelling errors need to be corrected (for example p.10 “firstly”, “secondly”). Overall, the new explanations included in this version added more clarity to the article.

Reviewer #2: Beyond issues of style, I consider there are room for still more improvement in the research paper. The new versión has incorporated several of my observations. Some issues I still would like to see in the paper are about the data analysis, to be positive that the model applied here is the most adequated. Also some policy recommendatios may be useful at the end of the document. And some edition suggestions (e.g., in the Reference section) I made before, may help in the final version.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Research policies and scientific production: A study of 94 Peruvian universities

PONE-D-20-37631R2

Dear Dr. Millones-Gómez,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Isabel Novo-Cortí

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: