[Vocabulary] Replacement for “Despite”

[ali_dd]

I am describing a part of literature in introduction of my paper:

Some authors experimentally investigated the effect of blade thickness on the Wells turbine performance. They changed the blade thickness from hub to tip in their work.........((two authors investigated))

Despite prior authors, a few authors also kept blade thickness constant from hub to tip in their experimental study. Takao et al. [13] .....((three authors investigated))

Regarding "Despite", could you please suggest some words to replace it? i think that use of "Despite prior authors" is inappropriate.

Thanks

 

[GoesStation]

You're right. Despite doesn't work there. I think authors is questionable, too. Even though others may have written or had their names on papers publishing the results, you should probably refer to them as researchers.

You could write In contrast to other researchers....