Updated Neuroscience Base Rate

For the past year, we have used aggregated demographic data based on SfN annual meeting registration to calculate a base rate for conferences falling under the general topic of “neuroscience,” and in our journal watch posts. This aggregated demographic data has been provided by the Society for Neuroscience (SfN), however all calculations and analysis are ours.

We have recently received updated and historical numbers from the Society for Neuroscience. The new base rates have been added to the neuroscience base rate page, along with a table of base rates per year.

During the calculation of the new base rates from the 2018 SfN annual meeting, we found an error in calculating the faculty base rate from the 2017 annual meeting. All affected posts have been updated. In addition, if the BWN rating (category) of a conference changed as a result of this error, a note was added. We are also making the aggregated numbers available on the neuroscience base rate page to prevent future mistakes.

Here is a look at the SfN base rates per year:

SfN Base Rates By Year (2)

2019 International Computational Psychiatry Course

2019 International Computational Psychiatry Course

Organizers: Frederike Petzschner & Klaas Enno Stephan
Speaker gender ratio: 4 Women : 19 Men (17%)
Estimated* base rate of women in the field: 29% 

*Method of estimation: previously established base rate of women in computational psychiatry.

2019 MBL Methods in Computational Neuroscience Course

2019 MBL Methods in Computational Neuroscience Course

Organizers: Stephen Baccus and Xiao-Jing Wang
Sponsors: National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the National Institute for Drug Abuse, NIH, Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain, and the Organization for Computational Neurosciences
Invited speaker gender ratio: 7 Women : 25 Men (22%)
Estimated* base rate of women in the field: 17-20%

*Method of estimation: Previously established base rate of women in computational neuroscience.

57th Annual Meeting American College of Neuropsychopharmacology 2018

57th Annual Meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology

Program chairs: See here
Sponsors: American College of Neuropsychopharmacology
Invited speaker gender ratio: 96 women : 103 men (48%) 
Estimated* base rate of women in the field: 29%

*Method of estimation: We searched NIH RePORTER with keyword neuropsychopharmacology and then counted the ratio of women among the unique researchers in the 1 page of results using our python script. Search originally performed in January 2019.