Research dot com, a platform created by scientists for scientists, has released its Best Female Scientists in the World list for 2022.

According to the website, the ranking of 166,800 female scientists is based on data collected from Microsoft Academic Graph and Google Scholar in June 2021.

Position in the ranking is based on a scientist's general H-index, which is the proportion of the contributions made within a discipline in addition to the awards and achievements of the scientists. Only the top 1000 female scientists with the highest H-index are featured in the ranking, the website said.

"We are painfully aware that academic research is still a predominantly male profession, and we believe that female scientists deserve an equal chance to be represented and praised for their achievements," Research dot com wrote. "Our aim is to inspire female scholars, women considering an academic career, as well as decision-makers worldwide with the example of successful women in the scientific community. We hope that it will contribute to providing more opportunities and equal chances for women in science.

In a February 2022 news feature published by Nature ("The giant plan to track diversity in research journals"), Holly Else and Jeffrey M. Perkel reported that in 2023, more than 50 publishers representing over 15,000 journals are preparing to ask scientists about their race or ethnicity — as well as their gender — in an initiative that’s part of a growing effort to analyze researcher diversity around the world.

According to the multidisciplinary science journal, publishers say that this information, gathered and stored securely, will help to analyze who is represented in journals, and to identify whether there are biases in editing or review that sway which findings get published.