PUBBLICAZIONE/PUBLICATION

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://gendermore.unimore.it/handle/123456789/1575

Browse

Settings

Subject: search.filters.subject.Gender BiasViewpoints: search.filters.viewpoints.Grants & Awards

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Item type:Publication,
    Ungendered writing: Writing styles are unlikely to account for gender differences in funding rates in the natural and technical sciences Open PDF 
    (2022)
    Horbach, S.P.J.M.
    ;
    Schneider, J.W.
    ;
    Sainte-Marie, M.
    Academia has traditionally faced a substantial gender gap in staff positions and career path progression. Women do not advance up the academic career ladder in the same rate as men, with evidence of gender bias in hiring, earnings, funding, and recognition by means of prestigious awards. In this study we focus on gender differences in funding applications. Multiple factors have been proposed as potentially underlying mechanisms creating differences in funding rates between men and women, including bias in peer review processes and differences in language use. In this study we use a set of 1560 full-text applications in the natural and technical sciences that were subjected to a double-blind review process at a Danish private funder to analyse gendered writing as a potential factor causing differences in funding rates. Reproducing analyses from previous studies that found significant differences in writing styles, we analyse patterns in the use of positive words, levels of readability, concreteness and sentiment. Unlike previous studies, we only find minimal differences in writing style between the sexes. We conclude that writing styles are unlikely to account for skewed funding patterns and suggest ways in which funding programmes can be designed to provide fair opportunities to all applicants. © 2022 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Gender bias in the allocation of student grants Open PDF 
    (2021)
    Wijnen, M.N.
    ;
    Massen, J.J.M.
    ;
    Kret, M.E.
    Multiple studies have shown that women’s likelihood of receiving research funding is lower than that of their male colleagues. Thus far, all research on this gender gap in academia has focused on post-PhD academics, making it difficult to discern whether the female disadvantages in number of publications, previous grants, maternity leave, and h-indexes are at the root of the gender gap in received funding, or whether it is due to a more fundamental gender bias in academia. Therefore, we investigated whether female university students are already disadvantaged in receiving their first grant in their scientific career. We analysed data on applications (N = 2651) from 1995 to 2018 to the Leiden University International Study Fund (LISF), a fund dedicated to support students to study or conduct research abroad. We found that men and women applied equally often to the LISF. However, women had a lower success rate, which seemed to only get worse over recent years. Furthermore, male and female applications were assessed to be equal in quality when gender-related information was removed from them. The current study demonstrates that the factors that were assumed to contribute the most to the gender gap in more senior academics (e.g. previous grants, h-index) do not explain it fully: even when those factors do not yet play a role, such as in our student sample, women were found to have lower success rates than men. This underscores the importance of attacking gender biases at its roots. © 2021, The Author(s).
  • Item type:Publication,
    Gender contributes to personal research funding success in The Netherlands Open PDF 
    (2015)
    Van Der Lee, R.
    ;
    Ellemers, N.
    ;
    Fiske, S.T.
    We examined the application and review materials of three calls (n = 2,823) of a prestigious grant for personal research funding in a national full population of early career scientists awarded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). Results showed evidence of gender bias in application evaluations and success rates, as well as in language use in instructions and evaluation sheets. Male applicants received significantly more competitive "quality of researcher" evaluations (but not "quality of proposal" evaluations) and had significantly higher application success rates than female applicants. Gender disparities were most prevalent in scientific disciplines with the highest number of applications and with equal gender distribution among the applicants (i.e., life sciences and social sciences). Moreover, content analyses of the instructional and evaluation materials revealed the use of gendered language favoring male applicants. Overall, our data reveal a 4% "loss" of women during the grant review procedure, and illustrate the perpetuation of the funding gap, which contributes to the underrepresentation of women in academia.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Understanding current causes of women's underrepresentation in science Open PDF 
    (2011)
    Ceci, S.J.
    ;
    Williams, W.M.
    Explanations for women's underrepresentation in math-intensive fields of science often focus on sex discrimination in grant and manuscript reviewing, interviewing, and hiring. Claims that women scientists suffer discrimination in these arenas rest on a set of studies undergirding policies and programs aimed at remediation. More recent and robust empiricism, however, fails to support assertions of discrimination in these domains. To better understand women's underrepresentation in math-intensive fields and its causes, we reprise claims of discrimination and their evidentiary bases. Based on a review of the past 20 y of data, we suggest that some of these claims are no longer valid and, if uncritically accepted as current causes of women's lack of progress, can delay or prevent understanding of contemporary determinants of women's underrepresentation. We conclude that differential gendered outcomes in the real world result from differences in resources attributable to choices, whether free or constrained, and that such choices could be influenced and better informed through education if resources were so directed. Thus, the ongoing focus on sex discrimination in reviewing, interviewing, and hiring represents costly, misplaced effort: Society is engaged in the present in solving problems of the past, rather than in addressing meaningful limitations deterring women's participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers today. Addressing today's causes of underrepresentation requires focusing on education and policy changes that will make institutions responsive to differing biological realities of the sexes. Finally, we suggest potential avenues of intervention to increase gender fairness that accord with current, as opposed to historical, findings.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Gender differences in grant peer review: A meta-analysis Open PDF 
    (2007)
    Bornmann, L.
    ;
    Mutz, R.
    ;
    Daniel, H.-D.
    Narrative reviews of peer review research have concluded that there is negligible evidence of gender bias in the awarding of grants based on peer review. Here, we report the findings of a meta-analysis of 21 studies providing, to the contrary, evidence of robust gender differences in grant award procedures. Even though the estimates of the gender effect vary substantially from study to study, the model estimation shows that all in all, among grant applicants men have statistically significant greater odds of receiving grants than women by about 7%. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.