Geographic patterns of choice among peers

Abstract

Editors of key journals in six specialties were asked to name experts in their specialty from whom they would like to receive manuscripts and whom they would like to use as referees. The people so named were asked for their choice of experts, and similarly for the persons they nominated. The analysis of geographical factors revealed a similarity between nominations and citations. Most of the nominees were from the U.S., followed by the UK and other industrialized and traditionally scientific nations. The U.S. scientists have a higher probability of being nominated than their proportion in the world scientific population might suggest. Nominators in most of the countries had a distinctive preference for nominating their own countrymen, with the exception of the Soviet Union.