Zotero Consumer Law Female Collective database: Promoting scholarship of women in consumer law

Research shows that publications of scholars who are women are less likely to be referred to than those of male authors. Is this the case in the field of consumer law studies, as well? Two prominent consumer law scholars, Prof Vanessa Mak (University of Tilburg, the Netherlands) and Dr Christine Riefa (Brunel University, UK), decided to organise an online meeting with a few other women working in the field of European consumer law, including Exeter’s Prof Joasia Luzak, to discuss any potential gender gaps, as well as brainstorm ideas on how to address them. This led to the beginning of the Consumer Law Female Collective this summer.

One of the brainstormed ideas was a possibility to create a database for (at least co-)written by women scholarship, with an aim of sharing it publicly. This should raise the awareness of women’s scholarship in this field, hopefully increasing the amount of citations to this body of work. It was Prof Luzak who has suggested the use of the Zotero database for this purpose and found time to set it up by organising it into different folders/sub-folders, and adding the first 100 sources to it.

The database is open as of the beginning of September, which means anyone can access it. Within the first few weeks, it already grew to over 150 entries. The Consumer Law FC hopes that this database will be shared not only amongst colleagues but also with students and anyone interested. It should help to diversify the curriculum for consumer law classes at various universities, too.

There are now seven registered members of the Zotero Consumer Law Female Collective database group, with rights to add/edit the database, these are: Dr Andrea Fejos (University of Essex, UK), Dr Lorna Gillies (University of Strathclyde Glasgow, UK), Dr Joasia Luzak (University of Exeter, UK), Prof Vanessa Mak (University of Tilburg, the Netherlands), Dr Kristin Nemeth (Universität Innsbruck, Austria), Prof Charlotte Pavillon (University of Groningen, the Netherlands), Dr Christine Riefa (Brunel University, UK).