The geographical diversity of the citation elite in STEMM is decreasing, even as the overall scientific workforce has diversified

The expansion of research systems in low- and middle-income countries has shifted science to a more diverse geographical structure. Using a global dataset of 40 million authors in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medical fields (STEMM), we investigate whether this shift has made it easier or more difficult for newcomers residing in the Global South to rise to prominence in their disciplines. We tracked yearly cohorts of authors who began their publication careers between 2000 and 2014, finding that the South-North gap in the likelihood of joining the ‘citation elite’ (the top 5% of most cited authors per cohort) has increased by approximately 23%. Southern Asia and South-Eastern Asia outperform Eastern Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean in terms of changing regional shares in the citation elite. South-North gaps in citation elite membership also appear to be larger and increasing in the life sciences, and smaller and shrinking in some engineering-related subfields. Using decomposition approaches, we attribute most of the widening South-North gap in citation elite membership to diverging trends in attrition rates, publication outputs and journal selection, with changes in team sizes and regional migration playing only a minor role. These findings highlight the enduring dominance of wealthier nations in the production and distribution of scientific knowledge. While the scientific workforce has diversified globally and opportunities for Global South individuals to pursue successful science careers in the Global North have expanded, regional disparities persist with scientists based in the Global South now less likely to achieve scientific prominence relative to their Global North counterparts than previously.