Is localisation important for scholarly impact?
Naming practices such as mentioning the sample’s country of origin in your title/abstract has shown to be skewed towards Global South countries. Routinely, scholars researching WEIRD populations don’t mention the sample geography that their findings are in relation to. In this lightning talk, I will discuss the implications of this localization on key indicators of academic impact, such as social media mentions, policy references, and traditional citation-based metrics. Open-source databases like OpenAlex, with improved coverage of Global South research, allow us to investigate these bibliographic questions of meta-scientific interest. By assessing the relationship between localization in article titles and research impact, we can critically evaluate the persistent norm of broad generalisation in scientific findings. This discussion seeks to challenge overgeneralization and the inappropriate application of research conclusions across diverse global contexts.