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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Gainbi ParkORCiD, Professor Rachel Franklin
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic were deep and lasting, and the effects on research and researchers have been widely documented. This paper contributes to this literature through an investigation of the gendered and geographical impacts of the pandemic on the five Regional Studies Association (RSA) journals. With the cooperation of Taylor & Francis, the RSA’s journal publisher, we generate a database of manuscripts submitted between January 2018 and December 2022. Employing gender-estimating algorithms and geographical locations of lead authors, we explore overall submission patterns over this five-year period, as well as trends in final editorial decisions by authorship characteristics, gender and geography. We find evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily depressed manuscript submissions, with heterogeneous effects depending on journal, continent and composition of authorship team. We also find strong evidence of persistent gender disparities in submission and acceptance rates that predate the pandemic, and therefore cannot be attributed solely to its effects. These findings reinforce the importance of identifying and effectively tackling persistent inequalities in academic publishing, and highlight that further action may be required in order to ensure equity and inclusivity in academic and research practices.
Author(s): Park G, Franklin R, Hardy S, Iammarino S, Poon JPH
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Regional Studies
Year: 2025
Volume: 59
Issue: 1
Online publication date: 12/05/2025
Acceptance date: 14/02/2025
Date deposited: 27/05/2025
ISSN (print): 0034-3404
ISSN (electronic): 1360-0591
Publisher: Routledge
URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2025.2485131
DOI: 10.1080/00343404.2025.2485131
Data Access Statement: Due to the confidential nature of the information, neither the manuscript-level nor aggregated data are available for sharing. However, the original data may be available from Taylor & Francis upon direct request.
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