Thread by @tigerinstemm

The @EPSRC report on gender in the funding portfolio tells us women are less likely to apply for grants across the board & are less likely to be successful when they apply for large grants. How will this impact women’s careers & the research ecosystem? epsrc.ukri.org/files/aboutus/…

We know that in research - just as in pretty much all else in life- success breeds success. This report gives evidence of systematic biases and barriers which will inevitably have a huge impact on the careers of women in science.

Research is the one key achievement needed to climb the Academic ladder, and lack of access to grant funding is keeping women out of senior roles. We need more visible women at the top of our profession if we are serious about tackling lack of representation.

What used to be ‘anecdotal’ evidence is now backed up by numbers: men are awarded more, women less.

It would be lazy to think this is due to lack of ambition. Women go through a painful process of learning that teaches them that in asking for more, they are just reducing their chances to get funded.

Systems designed by men for men, and the ‘old boys network‘ conspire to keep women ‘in their place’. By ‘asking for less’, women effectively work more over their careers for less money overall, just to keep their research going. The cumulative effect in a career is huge.

Also, think about the psychological strain of engaging with institutional demand management processes in which women are often confronted with opposition not support; of a constant need to prove your worth and compete with men who have more privilege and access to resources.

Our current research funding system, of very low success rates and intense competition, breeds a culture where desperation can prevail over fairness, and where the opportunity to a short cut route to a large probability of a high value grant is never going to be turned down.

What we need is major systemic change: Political will to properly fund the research ecosystem; leadership committed to equity; and a recognition that policies and processes which ensure fairness and transparency are key to achieving the most from our talented researchers.

With the system as it stands - biased, and flawed, - everyone loses out. Not just women and other marginalised folk who suffer directly from the in-built unfairness. Science suffers. Technology suffers. Engineering suffers. Medicine suffers.

Innovations go unrealised, great ideas remain on the drawing board. The potential impact of the ingenuity of thousands of unique minds is lost.

This report on gender represents only the tip of the iceberg in uncovering the impact of our funding systems on the diversity of our scientific community, and issues affecting racial minorities, disabled people and LGBTQ+ people are far more profound.