Because they participate in more research for social improvement, female researchers are more read and referenced.

 There is a well-documented gender difference in citations between male and female scholars. The causes for this disparity, on the other hand, are less certain and hotly debated. Lin Zhang and Gunnar Sivertsen provide findings from a mixed methods examination of Norwegian research publications, revealing that while articles written by women are less cited, they are more often interacted with by readers. They claim that these publications more typically feature programs targeted at social advancement, which are less regarded by academics and garner less citations, based on a deeper examination of the abstracts of these papers.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This study effort began with a question that needed to be answered. We discovered a clear gender discrepancy in citation impact after analyzing the citation impact of about 27,000 scientific articles with female and male first authors among nearly 12,000 researchers at Norway's four main institutions (Norway was chosen because it has a national database with reliable information about the gender, age, positions, affiliations,and publications of all researchers). The fact that female researchers' articles receive less citations is not surprising, since it has been frequently noted and discussed. However, when we included an additional indication of effect, abstract views, we discovered something even more surprising: papers by female academics drew higher reader attention, but they were still less cited.

A disciplinary explanation for this phenomena is clear; do female researchers choose fields of research that are more socially oriented and accessible to a broader audience, such as nursing research over mathematics?This explanation was ineffective. Almost every field of inquiry revealed the same gender disparity. Female first authors' papers earned fewer citations but more readers. Why?

After reading one hundred abstracts from our data, we came up with the following hypothesis: Male researchers are more likely to engage in research aimed at scientific progress, whereas female researchers are more likely to engage in research aimed at societal progress in addition to scientific progress.

We would normally utilize automatic techniques for content categorization in huge collections of publications in our field of study, quantitative scientific studies, but the goals of research are difficult to define using topical terms, shared references, or standard phrases. The abstract genre, on the other hand, necessitates that the study goals be stated explicitly, most typically at the beginning or end.

From our database of publications, we chose over 1,200 abstracts that were either highly referenced, commonly read as abstracts, or both. Each of the three groups had around a third of the participants. Then, blinded from the prior analysis, we read all of the selected abstracts individually. We classified the papers as primarily intended at scientific advancement, primarily focused at societal advancement, or both. Then we compared the outcomes to the previous ones: Publications targeted at societal advancement drew the most attention from readers, and they were more likely to have female first writers. Scientific advancement publications were more commonly quoted, and those with male first authors were more frequently cited.

Our findings partly confirmed what had been seen since the 1970s: Applied research receives less citations than basic research. We prefer the distinction between scientific and societal progress over basic/applied because it is easier to apply when reading abstracts from all fields of research to find specific expressions of goals within the REF's broad definition of impact: "an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment, or quality of life, beyond academia."

What was previously unknown is that the relationship between citation impact and reader interest is tied to the study goals, and that there is a gender difference in this regard. We were still perplexed as to why female and male researchers prioritize different study goals to some extent. Is it a question of motivations and values?

What was not known before, is that citation impact versus interest among readers is related to the aims of research, and that there is a gender difference here.

We might utilize the findings of a survey done in 2017-2018 among cardiologists, economists, and physicists in five European countries: Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, to address this question. We received almost two and a half thousand replies to their study questions. One question inquired about their motives for participating in research, while another inquired about the ideal type of study. The responses to both questions showed that all researchers, male and female, place a high emphasis on scientific development. However, we discovered that female researchers are more motivated than male researchers to participate in social advancement research. Furthermore, female researchers were more likely to rank contributing to society advancement as a quality of the finest research. This leads us to our conclusion:

Male researchers place a higher emphasis on and participate in research that is primarily focused on scientific advancement. They are more frequently mentioned in scientific journals.

Female researchers place a higher priority on research that contributes to social improvement. They pique the reader's curiosity.

None of these arguments rule out the possibility of additional causes for the same discrepancies. Our current worry is that our findings will have ramifications for research evaluation, funding policies, and practices. It is necessary to have a critical conversation about how societal involvement versus citation effect is evaluated, as well as how financing requirements reflect gender inequalities.