Constraints on Research in Biological and Agricultural Science in Developing Countries: The Example of Latin America

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is very timely in post-pandemic circumstances and could well act as a wake-up call for adopting more effective policies and actions in the region. The main issue this reviewer finds in the text is that the transition between abstract and item 1 quite abrupt. Some kind of introduction -- even a short one -- would be required where the rationale for the study is outlined together with the methods followed for collecting the info underpinning the analysis and the structure of the paper.

Partly as a result of the absence of such an intro, it's not totally clear if the statements on the text apply to all countries in Latin America and to all scientific disciplines despite the significant differences across countries and disciplines. The text regularly refers to Latin America as a whole without acknowledging anywhere these large differences in the region. Specific mentions are provided in different sections to Mexico, Cuba and -- to a minor extent -- Brazil, but there's no indication on whether the issues highlighted may be more acute in some countries or groups of them. This could be expected to be part of the methodology and it would be useful to address this issue in the (missing) introduction.

Moreover, the paper seems to have been (mostly) written from a biomedical sciences perspective but there's little in it in the way of addressing differences across disciplines. If the paper is specifically written with biomedical sciences -- or even experimental sciences -- in mind (like the authors' affiliations and some of the aspects addressed such as instrumentation would suggest) it should be clearly stated in the intro.

There is a to some extent remarkable absence of figures and stats on the paper. Beyond a mention to the percentage of GDP invested in research in advanced vs developing countries, there are practically no supporting stats for some of the statements made in the text. Some of these -- such as brain drain trends, open access publishing figures or surveys conducted among returned researchers trained elsewhere -- would seem quite important for the paper to be perceived as rigurous.

The are numerous English-language issues on the text. They do not significantly impact its readability but it would be useful to have them fixed.

Author Response

 

1. An introduction has been added to the text.
2. We have tried to provide examples of the disparities among the countries in Latin America in terms of the factors that encumber research. Figures have been added that point this out.
3. We have indicated in the title that the article is written from a biological and agricultural perspective.
4. A number of figures have been added to the text to provide a more didactic presentation.
5. We have revised the text for syntax and grammar.

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper exploring the issues affecting research in Latin America. With a small amount of revision this paper will be a contribution to knowledge and discourse in this area.

The paper does not have an introduction explaining what it is trying to achieve. Without reading the abstract first, the paper does not make a great deal of sense. Similarly there is not conclusion. It simply presents as a series of issues without context - adding this framework will assist readers understand the intent of the paper.

In Section 1.1 there is a veiled reference to the COVID pandemic in relation tor educed ability to travel. If indeed this paragraph is referring to the pandemic, it should state this.

The last sentence in Section 1.2 does not make sense.

The opening sentences in Section 1.3 are very general in nature and do not have any references to support them. The whole sections seems to be making an argument that personality differences are the cause for research groups to be unsuccessful. If this is the case it is not something that is exclusive to Latin America.

Section 1.4 is lamenting the structure of higher education training in Latin America which does not encourage independent thought. It could be helpful to reference a couple of good examples of programs elsewhere that could be emulated. The comment about the number of publications resulting from undergraduate theses presumably is referring to Latin America, and the sentence should state this because the section is mixing up commentary about the rest of the world and Latin America and it could be made clearer which the authors are referring to.

This is a similar issue in the first sentence in Section 1.5 - does the first sentence refer to the world or Latin America? The second sentence needs rewriting. This section also makes the statement that new faculty members have a higher teaching load. Why is this the case? Is there a reference for this statement?

In Section 2.1 the sentence starting "The absence of this practice is reflected in ..." might be instead saying "The absence of this practice is a result of..."?

The last sentence in the first paragraph of Section 2.2 would read better if flipped: "In 1950, 90% of publications emerged from the capital, Mexico City. Nowadays, as a result of this initiative, only 50% are produced in this metropolis." Please also describe the 'initiative' to which this sentence refers? I do not know the journal style with relation to percentages, but this sentence has both '%' and 'percent'.

Section 2.3 needs to be strengthened. I think the authors are trying to make the case that if there were more technical support, then research would happen more smoothly, but it is mixed up between tech support and training of students.

The first paragraph in Section 2.4 seems to be entirely anecdotal, it needs some reference.

Section 2.5 seems to be a similar argument to Section 2.3 - perhaps join them together and clean up the argument a little?

Section 3.1 there is the statement "In most countries throughout the world, and more so in Latin America, governments and funding agencies are either unaware or do not consider this an issue." This is a sweeping statement that i am not sure is accurate. It needs a reference.

Section 3.2 refers to desk rejections and that they mean authors do not have the benefit of review. The statement would benefit from some indication of how often this occurs in Latin America in contrast to the rest of the world.

The second paragraph in Section 3.4 is slightly mixed up and needs rewriting.

There is a reference to 'Bosman et al, 2012'. That date is 2021. The reference list has been generated by hand, not using a bibliometric tool such as Zotero. This does risk mistakes. There is no reference for the statement in the final couple of sentences of this section.

Section 3.7 is speculation without any supporting references.

The strategies suggested in Section 4.1 are sweeping and not well defined. What do the authors define 'cutting edge research' as?

The Reference list needs attention. Journal names are not italiced. The third reference is from 2014 - that is an old reference in the area of open access.

I have made many comments here, but please don't be discouraged. The paper will be considerably stronger if you address these issues.

 

 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer

Thank you for your valuable comments.  We have made the changes that you have requested and we believe that this has strengthened the manuscript.

 

1. An introduction has been added to the text.
2. The pandemic has been explicitly cited.
3. The last sentence in section 1.2 has been revised.
4. The corrections suggested in sections 1.4 and 1.5 have been made.
5. The sentence in section 2.1 has been modified.
6. The sentence in section 2.2 has been modified as suggested.
7. We have removed reference to training from section 2.3 so it is no longer redundant to section 2.5.
8. We have removed the sweeping statement from section 3.1.
9. Desk rejections vary widely among journals, 90% or more in some high impact journals. We have no statistics about the frequency that manuscripts from Latin American authors are subject to this process.
10. The second paragraph of section 3.4 has been revised.
11. The reference to Bosman et al. has been corrected in the text.

Section 3.7 is based on the experience of the author in publishing in Latin America

Reviewer 3 Report

This was really interesting--as you mentioned in the recommendations, articles like this should be printed and brought to the attention of scholarly communities regularly! I do have some recommendations; I've structured this according to the outline of the text.

Please write an introduction. The abstract was good, but the body of the paper needs context. 

1.1: you don't mention collaborating via technology, which is quite normal around the world. 

1.4: are there any studies that support your statements? This is actually a bit of a problem throughout the paper; for instance, you mention high teaching loads in South America (that is in 1.5), but it would be useful for the readers to understand this in terms of comparisons. You also mention a small number of publications resulting from undergraduate theses. That might be normal in Europe but it isn't in North America, so maybe provide more comparisons here. We really need a citation for South American Schools not promoting independent thinking; that seems like an undue criticism, though it might be true. It just needs a citation. 

3.2: avoid using "all" - all scientists might not have experienced this problem. 

3.3: Cite Eugene Garfield, who created the impact factor. He never intended for it to be used as it is today. Also, "new bibliometric measures" are called altmetrics - maybe refer to them as such.

3.4: it sounds like you are saying that authors should engage in self-citation. That is generally frowned upon, so you might rephrase this or rethink it if that is what you are saying.

For the recommendations...do you think that more international funding to support collaborations and mentorship might be helpful to everyone? If so, you might consider that. Also, you didn't mention Research4Life and other efforts to get biological and scientific publications to developing nations. What is available to scientists in South America? 

This was really good--I look forward to a revision!

 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3

Thank you for your valuable comments.  We have made the changes that you have requested and we believe that this has strengthened the manuscript.

1. An introduction has been added to the text.
2. We have discussed collaboration on technology with colleagues in industrialized countries.
3. A survey was taken by one of the authors on the topic of teaching loads. This is included in the revised text.
4. We have qualified the all scientists to most scientists. This said, all among us have experienced rejection.
5. We have cited Garfield and added altmetrics to the text.
6. We have not said in section 3.4 that authors should engage in self-citation as a practice to increase impact, rather to provide credibility as published authors.
7. We have included reference to Research4life in the text. We hope our recommendations are clear.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

These amendments have vastly improved this paper. There are some very minor typographical items.

Section 2.2, line 12, 'andscientists' needs a space

Section 2.4 last line 'development *of* younger peers'

Section 3.2 lines 8-9 'ninety percent' and '50%' - inconsistent style, choose one or the other

Section 4.1 Par 1, line 16 - two full stops, par 2, line 11 Nature should be italiced as the name of a journal

Author Response

All of the recommended changes have been made.  Thank you for your positive evaluation of our manuscript. 

Reviewer 3 Report

This is such an interesting article but it needs more evidence. You can probably get around this by calling it an editorial based on personal experience and observation - but you need to do that. There are some broad statements about Latin American education and scholarship, feelings of scientists, etc., that need to either be supported with actual evidence unless you state at the beginning that much of this is from observation. 

There are a few things to clarify: 

(1) on page 3, there is a graph; how were those countries selected?

(2) On page 4, you are discussing international funding organizations, that they "are often biased towards supporting integrated research teams. Successful exploitation of interactive teams is a challenge often because individual interests are in conflict with team integration." I think that is contradicting the heading of that section. Biased towards or against??

(3) On p. 13, you state "There is a clear difference between writing in English, a language precise and not so eloquent, and languages such as Spanish or Portuguese where the vocabulary is rich..." . This is only scientific writing, not English in general. I'm not defending English per se, but scientists do write in a particular way in English - but that's not the language in general, so specify please. 

 

Author Response

Thank you for your positive comments about our manuscript.

1. Reviewer: This is such an interesting article but it needs more evidence. You can probably get around this by calling it an editorial based on personal experience and observation - but you need to do that. There are some broad statements about Latin American education and scholarship, feelings of scientists, etc., that need to either be supported with actual evidence unless you state at the beginning that much of this is from observation.

Response:  We believe this to be an editorial decision, and have chosen to leave the designation of the manuscript unchanged unless this is a condition for publication.

2. Reviewer: on page 3, there is a graph; how were those countries selected

Response:  This information was acquired from the Our World in Data Website (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/research-spending-gdp. Their method of selection is not clear, it is stated that: Estimates of the resources allocated to R&D are affected by national characteristics such as the periodicity and coverage of national R&D surveys across institutional sectors and industries; and the use of different sampling and estimation methods. R&D typically involves a few large performers, hence R&D surveys use various techniques to maintain up-to-date registers of known performers, while attempting to identify new or occasional performers.

3. Reviewer: On page 4, you are discussing international funding organizations, that they "are often biased towards supporting integrated research teams. Successful exploitation of interactive teams is a challenge often because individual interests are in conflict with team integration." I think that is contradicting the heading of that section. Biased towards or against??

Response: We have clarified these statements as follows: International funding organizations often prefer to support integrated research teams.  Nonetheless, successful exploitation of interactive teams is a challenge often because individual interests are in conflict with team integration. Some researchers are individualist by nature, and resist cooperation in research teams, thus retarding the progress that could be achieved by an integrated approach.

4. Reviewer: On p. 13, you state "There is a clear difference between writing in English, a language precise and not so eloquent, and languages such as Spanish or Portuguese where the vocabulary is rich..." . This is only scientific writing, not English in general. I'm not defending English per se, but scientists do write in a particular way in English - but that's not the language in general, so specify please.

Response:   We have clarified this sentence as requested.