In 2022, Harleen co-chaired the Postgraduate Bioethics Conference at the University of Bristol with Jordan A. Parsons. Through their collaboration with BRIDGES:BKY and as part of their efforts to make peer review a more inclusive process, Harleen wrote some guidance for the scientific committee. This guidance has since been used for other conferences, and is publicly available here.
Feel free to adopt and adapt the following guidance for your own use, but please credit the Black and Brown in Bioethics network if doing so.
Awareness of Unconscious Biases
There is an emphasis on equality, diversity and inclusion in our conference. Although there is no formal bias training for reviewing these abstracts, we would be grateful if you could please read this document from the University of Bristol on unconscious biases, as an introduction to this broad topic. While this document has been targeted towards staffing and recruitment, many of the points are still relevant, particularly the ‘ACTIVATE’ framework that is described for challenging unconscious biases. When reviewing abstracts, please be mindful of the following potential biases:
- Linguistic bias. There is evidence that “non-native-like English” abstracts receive worse ratings of ‘scientific quality’, and that the quality of academic writing is judged more harshly by peer reviewers, if it does not meet expectations for academic English, even when the content of the abstract is good. (Politzer-Ahles et al, 2020) Please do not make a decision to reject or mark down an abstract based on expression, if the content of the abstract is otherwise good (i.e. the ‘horns effect’, disregarding positives on the basis of one negative), as the phrasing of abstracts can be edited (with the author’s permission) if needed.
- Institutional/geographical bias. Although blinded peer review at least partially reduces reviewer bias, there may still be mention of academic affiliations or geographical areas in the abstract itself. We ask you to be aware of the tendency to favour certain institutions or areas. A study published in JAMA demonstrated strong evidence of bias, which favoured authors from English-speaking countries and prestigious academic institutions. (Ross et al, 2006).
- Affinity bias. Bioethics is interdisciplinary, and it is likely that we have received abstract submissions from postgraduate researchers working in a range of disciplines and on a range of topics. We are more likely to favour abstracts from similar disciplines or on similar ideas to our own research backgrounds and interests. Please try to judge the abstract on the basis of whether PGRs attending this conference would be interested in an oral/poster presentation, rather than if you would personally be interested.
Reviewing Process
Abstracts will be equally divided amongst us all, and each abstract will be reviewed by two people in a blinded peer review process. We ask reviewers to give each abstract a score of 1 to 5, where:
- 1 = definite oral
- 2 = possible oral
- 3 = definite poster
- 4 = possible poster
- 5 = reject
Any abstracts that are ‘rejected’ or ‘undecided’ (e.g. two ‘possible poster’ scores) will then be marked by a third reviewer.
We would be grateful if you could please keep a note of the abstracts you have reviewed (e.g. by logging the abstract ID, or title) in this MS Excel Spreadsheet, and the scores you have assigned each abstract. Please also make a note of any keywords for the abstract (e.g., ‘reproductive ethics’, ‘end-of-life care’), as this will help us when organising thematic parallel sessions. When you have finished reviewing the abstracts, please send us your completed spreadsheet.
Marking Criteria
We don’t have specific marking criteria, as (most) abstracts that are submitted to our conference are accepted as either oral or poster presentations, and we really just want to give PGRs the experience to present in a welcoming and inclusive environment. However, it may help to consider whether the author has paid attention to the following points when reviewing abstracts (while being mindful of unconscious biases):
- Introductory statement
- Purpose/aim of research
- Methodological approach (and appropriateness of this approach)
- Explanation of results/findings
- Conclusions (and appropriateness of these conclusions, based on the aim/methods/results)
- Originality, clarity and importance of message
- Adherence to submission instructions (e.g., too long or too short)
- Relevance and interest to delegates
- Overall impression/effort – this is really the main, albeit most vague, criterion