Geoscience academic hiring networks reinforce historic patterns of inequity

Abstract

An analysis of the academic hiring networks in geoscience reveals a severe imbalance that favors graduates from a small handful of institutions. In this study, social network analysis was conducted on a database consisting of every individual with a Ph.D. working in a geoscience degree-granting program in the United States (n = 6694) between 2015 and 2021. Individuals were mapped from the institution where they earned their Ph.D. to the institution where they currently work. Of the 895 geoscience degree-granting institutions included in the database, 10 alone produced nearly a quarter (24.6%) of the entire academic geoscience workforce. Network analysis also identified a small, closed network consisting of five of the top-10 institutions, which suggests that these networks hire more frequently from one another than from other institutions in the network. When academic rank was used to analyze the network for change over time, no significant shift in the hiring patterns was found. These imbalances in faculty production disadvantage scientists who are educated at programs other than the top-placing institutions and ultimately reinforces longstanding inequities in the field, such as the under-representation of people who are Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), and first-generation college students in geoscience faculty. These patterns of inequity have also been shown to limit the spread of new scientific ideas throughout research communities.