Peer review of doctoral dissertations: gender differences in receiving 'cum laude': Paper for the second PEERE conference, Septembr 29 - October 1, 2020.

Peer review is everywhere in science, and it may work better in some contexts than in others. An understudied area is the way peer review works in the assessment of PhD dissertations. This paper tries to fill this gap by investigating the decisions about when a thesis receives 'cum laude' in a Dutch university. The Netherlands system of granting PhD degrees forms an interesting case, as only rarely a PhD dissertation receives this award.
Initial research indicates that men receive this award for their thesis twice as often than women do. This paper investigates the functioning of the related peer review process, and what factors lead to deviations from a merit-based decision-making process. Is the difference between men and women because the peer reviewers adequately pick out the best dissertations and there happen to be more male than female authors in this group? Or is the decision making biased, and in this case especially gender biased, and what mechanisms might cause such bias?