In Greek mythology, the sirens are enchanting creatures that captivate sailors with their voices, luring them to their end. Odysseus, in Homer’s Odyssey, plugged his men’s ears with wax and asked his men to tie him to the mast of the ship so as not to answer to the sirens’ call. But what do you do when there is no one to tie you down, or shake you to wake up and not follow the call….?

Egyptian Folkloric tales portrayed the sirens in a different shade, whereby the sirens can call anyone, farmer, sailor, poet, etc.. and allure them to the deep waters, where they disappear without a trace. Tragic? Yes, however through this lens, the sirens are seen not as a force of evil, but rather, the interwoven twist in one’s fate. “He has been called by the sirens! Al nadaha nadaheto” is commonly said when someone does not show up in Egypt. Each has his siren shaped by a desire, and each will answer the call. In this sense, the call is a man’s duty that he cannot hide from. The more one runs away, the more deafening the call will be. There is no escape except to answer the call.

Fate has its ways. In July 2024,  a few minutes before I presented a departmental seminar at one of the leading research institutes in the world, as a part of a final stage for my interview for a group leader position, I looked out of the window, and thought that even if I got this dream job, I do not think I will be happy accepting the offer. I was struck by lightning, I realised that my turn has come and I have been called by a siren. At that moment, I knew no title—no matter how prestigious—could silence the siren’s call.

Like many ethnic minority scientists abroad, I was fighting an inner ravishing war that tore me apart. Whether to stay or return back home, I know that both sides have their caveats. On one hand, staying abroad provides me with better facilities and opportunities to grow to become a part-time glorified ticking box to fulfill Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies. While returning back home, set a Heraclean challenge to produce good research with lower-equipped facilities.

All of this points to a deeper, more obvious issue: global epistemic injustice.

Earth is spinning lopsided with a centripetal force that concentrates high income countries scientists at the heart of the science landscape and a centrifugal force that pushes LMICs outwards. We are more than a box to be ticked, our representation is a must to present what else is happening in the world. A recent study that analysed 6491 articles published in top medical journals* ( shockingly revealed that only 11.9% of the articles published come from countries that are non-European and non-American. However, this percentage reflects an improvement that took 17 years rising up from 6.9%¹. Another study, that has not been peer reviewed yet, analysed 49,674 articles in top medical journals**. Not surpisingly anymore, only 3.9% of the articles were published by an entire team from LMICs compared to 86.6% an entire team from HICs². In Albert Camus’ words, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy”… than being from LMICs trying to publish in these top journals.

And yet, despite it all, the siren keeps calling to return back home and I accepted the call. While their call is personal, our calls are getting louder “Fair Science community for all”. Because, simply, we have something important and vital to share with the rest of the world. Till that day, returning home would still be a siren call, and we pray that researchers going back to LMICs will not disappear without a trace in the fog of inequity.

* Journals covered in this study were;  British Medical Journal (BMJ), The Lancet, New England Journal ofMedicine (NEJM), Annals of Internal Medicine (AIM) and the Journal of the American MedicalAssociation (JAMA).

* Journals covered in this study were; New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), The British Medical Journal (BMJ), The Lancet, and Nature Medicine.

Sherif Abouelhadid

References:

• Woods, W. A., Watson, M., Ranaweera, S., Tajuria, G. & Sumathipala, A. Under-representation of low and middle income countries (LMIC) in the research literature: Ethical issues arising from a survey of five leading medical journals: have the trends changed? Glob Public Health 18, (2023).
• Charpignon, M.-L. et al. Does diversity beget diversity? A scientometric analysis of over 150,000 studies and 49,000 authors published in high-impact medical journals between 2007 and 2022. medRxiv 2024.03.21.24304695 (2024) doi:10.1101/2024.03.21.24304695