Geodiversity of hunger research: Are local authors equally and fairly represented in the scientific literature?

Abstract

This study examined the geodiversity of researchers through a case study of publications related to the United Nations SDG 2: Zero hunger. We organised 60,000 hunger-related publications by country focus and by author country affiliation according to the 2021 Global Hunger Index country categories. Only 41% of hunger-related publications that focus on countries in the most severe GHI categories feature authors affiliated to institutions in those countries. Even fewer of those publications feature locally based authors in first or last position. These numbers gradually reverse as the level of hunger declines. We believe these findings can provide perspective in the debate on ‘helicopter’ research.