Geodiversity of hunger research -- country focus and its regional and international actors

As we address the grand challenges of our time, inclusivity and representation become key success factors. This study examined the geodiversity of researchers through a case study of publications related to the United Nations SDG 2 - Zero hunger. We assumed topical focus if a country was mentioned in the title or abstract of an article. We also determined author location through their institutional affiliation. We organised 60,000 hunger-related publications by country focus and by country affiliation according to the 2021 Global Hunger Index country categories. This revealed insights into the share of research into hunger conducted by academics based in affected areas and the relationship between local and international researchers. Only 41% of hunger-related publications that focus on countries in the GHI alarming or extremely alarming 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 urge caution before leaping to conclusions related to helicopter research based on author affiliations and authorship position. A manual examination of randomly sampled papers suggests that many underlying factors contribute to the overall trends.