PONE-D-21-20760

Barriers of West African women scientists in their research and academic careers: A qualitative research

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

This is a very timely and relevant topic. The paper is relevant and of interest to the journal readers. However, it still needs some minor revisions in order to be accepted for publication. Authors should take into detail consideration the recommendations made by the two reviewers. It is particularly relevant that the authors redesign the theoretical framework.

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: N/A

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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?

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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: This paper addresses a very interesting, under researched topic and specially targeting this geographical context. I believe the authors have very relevant data which can enhance knowledge on the topic addressed but it deserves further (theoretical) discussion in order to better contribute to this domain of knowledge and be published. Therefore, I suggest to improve the theoretical review at the beginning – introduction. The topic on the mechanisms underlying the exclusion, domination or marginalization of women in society and/or in the workplace, preventing them to fully progress in their career is very important and this work contributes a relevant step in advancing knowledge in this field. Therefore, the manuscript would benefit by including more reflections and literature about the fact that academia suffers from the myth of being a gendered organization (Acker, J. 1990. Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations; Hearn, J., Husu, L. 2011.

Understanding gender: Some implications for science and technology; Husu, Liisa (2013). Interrogating gender paradoxes in changing academic and scientific organizations.

And other literature targeting these issues in academia (Leathwood, C., Read, B.

2008. Gender and the Changing Face of higher Education. A Feminized Future?; Husu, L. 2005Women's Work-Related and Family-Related Discrimination and Support in Academia; Carvalho & Diogo (2018). Women rectors and leadership narratives: The same male norm?

And there is also more literature that problematizes the argument that women tend to spend more time on teaching and less on research, cf. e.g., Carvalho & Diogo (2021) Time and Academic Multitasking–Unbounded Relation Between Professional and Personal Time. these are just some references that can help to ground the theoretical contributions of this work.

The english can be improved, although it is perfectly understandable.

Other minor things: Page 8 abstract

Lines 27 and 28: “After transcription, the data was thematically analysed using an inductive process. The Nvivo 12 software was used”. This might be left outside the abstract and be included only in the methodology section

Page 9, line 47 – include the acronym (STEM) at the end of that statement (before reference [2]).

These are just small details

Reviewer #2: The study addresses a very timely topic, that of gender inequalities in Higher Education (HE) and Research and Innovation (R&I) institutions which has been on top of discussion in recent years both in academic research and in public debate. The paper tackles two key areas - gender equality in careers and in decision-making bodies - in five West African countries (Ghana, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali). Specifically, it has two main goals: to identify obstacles to the career advancement of women in HE and R&I institutions and to identify strategies to achieve a more equitable representation of women in those institutions. To address these research goals, thirty in depth interviews have been conducted in research institutions of these five West African countries.

Overall, the language is clear, the paper is well organized and makes an important contribution to the literature on gender equality in the African context which is considerably less developed than that focusing on European or North-American cases.

Nonetheless, while the study appears to be sound, it fails to relate to previous research in this area both regarding gender equality in the specific institutional context of the academia, and also concerning gender equality in the context of West African societies. Therefore, I suggest that both the Introduction and the Discussion are reviewed and possibly rewritten to take previous research into account.

Next, I make some detailed suggestions regarding each of the main aspects of the study:

1 - Research question and theoretical framework:

The study would benefit from a narrower research question focusing primarily on the barriers or obstacles to a more equitable representation of women and men in HE and R&I institutions. This should then be analyzed considering the vast literature on multidimensional explanations for gender inequalities, namely the role of factors at the institutional, cultural and individual levels. More specifically, relevant research on gender equality in HE and R&I institutions is currently under development (see, for example, international projects: “ACT”, “UNiGUAL”, “CHANGE”, among others) and have already produced important outputs that can be incorporated in the study's theoretical and analytical framework. In fact, in the Results sub-sections (pages 8 to 15) different types of obstacles are rightly identified: at the organizational, family and individual levels. These are indeed part of multidimensional analyses of gender inequalities and should be connected to the literature reviewed in the Introduction so that there is a dialogue between previous research and the results of this particular study.

2 - Case selection and justification:

As most research on the topic is based on cases from the global north, it is crucial that the study provides an adequate background for the cases it addresses, namely the five selected West African countries. It would be useful to point out not only the gender patterns in academia (which is briefly done only in the cases of Mali and Senegal) but also more general gender equality indicators as provided by different international organizations. This contextualization of the selected cases would ideally include information on policy measures and actions adopted by HE and R&I institutions regarding gender equality in these countries. In this sense, I suggest the inclusion of some references to secondary literature on these topics in the selected country cases. This initial framework would then allow for the definition of the study’s main expectations regarding the barriers to gender equality in research careers and in decision making bodies which are considerably underdeveloped.

3 - Methods:

The methodological section is clear, organized and technically sound, although I do not consider absolutelly necessary the subdivion in "study design", "study population", "sampling" and "data collection and analysis", as in pages 4 to 6. Additionally, some minor issues can be improved as in the case of the first paragraph of the Results section (page 6) which should be part of the sample description, on page 5.

4 - Results and Conclusions:

The results of the content analysis of the interviews are clearly presented and support the study’s conclusions. However, as previously mentioned, it would benefit from a clearer and more rigorous dialogue with the Introduction. As an example, on page 15, the three initial sentences of the Discussion report to three key aspects underpinning the investigation: the research problem, the theoretical framework and the selected cases. However, neither of these aspects had been sufficiently covered beforehand and the reader feels the need to go back to the introductory section seeking for more information on these points which are only mentioned on a very superficial manner.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Barriers of West African women scientists in their research and academic careers: A qualitative research

PONE-D-21-20760R1

Dear Dr. ,

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.

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Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Waiting for further decision from the Editorial office. Thank you for the manuscript.

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: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

**********

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

**********

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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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