This gender gap reflects the continuing difficulties of women scientists in academia, say many observers.
This is particularly important given the difficulty of distinguishing among the scientists from China at an early stage in their careers where their publication records cannot be directly compared with those in Europe.
Even as specialization drives scientists apart intellectually, ever-cheaper and more convenient communication technologies e-mail, technologies e-maileoconferencing, Skype, instext file sharing, and messagingly reduce the cost and difficulty of working with other scientists, regardless of their physical location.
Emphasis was also given by many (57%) respondents to the difficulty of impressing on other scientists the importance and hence the need for funding of biocuration.
A perceptive 2012 analysis by Fang and Casadevall identified imbalances in the career structure and incentivisation of scientists as core difficulties, but although framed as a call for reform, their study concludes by simply calling for a 'conversation' among scientists about what changes to implement.
Some 64% of scientists report having "had difficulty" in getting grants since 2010, and 53% report having "had multiple grant applications" rejected.
If the "first gap in translation" refers to the difficulty of harnessing the ideas of basic scientists and clinician-scientists, then the "second gap in translation" relates to the way in which new knowledge and processes diffuse, or fail to, across the health system [[ 4]: 86].
Although working together is what brings many scientists together, staying together is complicated by the difficulty of finding suitable positions for two scientists within the same university or geographic location.
To date, no study has documented the opinion of scientists from LDC regarding the difficulties in publishing their work.
The difficulty is compounded by continual attacks on the credibility of scientists.
