Gender Quotients in Australia and Beyond: A Survey and Strategies for Research Grants to Women and Non-Binary Scientists
At the other end of the spectrum, the NHMRC, which funds Australia’s health and medical research, has implemented gender quotas and will award half of its mid- and late-career research grants in 2023 to women and non-binary scientists. Anne Kelso, the agency’s chief executive, says that the NHMRC adopted these changes after reviewing 20 years of data on the demographics of grant applicants and awardees. The team realized that more women were entering the field but they weren’t getting promotions. “We came to the position [that] it is time to take this very substantial step,” she says.
The report is supported by 17 organizations, among which are the Association for Women in Science, 500 Women Scientists, and the European Platform of Women Scientists.
A group of funders control the distribution of billions of research dollars and want to work with the organizations to roll the recommendations into their policies. Those funders include Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the European Research Council (ERC), the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
As a consequence, she received more grant rejections and fewer professional opportunities, such as invitations to collaborate or to travel for conferences, than she had before becoming a parent — a snowball of obstacles that limited her ability to advance. “When I was compared to my peers, I was behind,” Staniscuaski says. I thought that was unfair. I didn’t become incompetent or lose my passion for science, I just had a break because I was raising my children.” She started advocacy for gender-balanced policies in Brazil full time after she launched her non-profit organization Parent in Science.
In 2021, MIS held a conference to bring together groups studying gender discrimination in STEMM and to share the preliminary results of their global survey (the full report is expected to be published this year), which reached roughly 9,000 researcher-respondents in 128 countries, including parents and those without children.
The report also includes examples of good practices already in effect and that create a sliding scale of strategies for organizations to consider. Among the easiest to implement, according to Torres, are things such as rolling deadlines, and extensions and deferments for grants; application formats that allow scientists to explain lapses in productivity; and unconscious-bias training for grant reviewers coupled with an appeals process for when bias is suspected.
I see now that my choice to work hard was fuelled not only by my love for the work but also by systemic factors. The risk of burn out is higher among young researchers. Front. There is more pressure on academics from marginalized groups to perform. I am not able to speak to the pressures that affect many young women, among them those from minority groups, those juggling motherhood with early-career research and scientists from countries where there is extreme gender discrimination.
Other agencies, including the ERC and the NSERC, have dedicated committees that advise their leadership on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. Kristina Archibald, director of the research grants and scholarships portfolio at NSERC, says that she will work with the committee to assess whether any of the report’s suggestions could enhance the agency’s existing practices. She notes that the policy on diversity data by parental status is not currently being considered, but she suggests it may be helpful to determine the policies that support mothers.
Do I really need to go back to work? Why did I quit teaching Slovakia to become a doctor? How I became a psychologist in a toxic burnout culture
At the age of 18, I left Slovakia to study in the UK with a small suitcase and big hopes. My parents couldn’t have dreamed of growing up in a communist regime, so I wanted to take full advantage of the opportunities. But never in my wildest dreams did I think I would become a professor before the age of 35.
More hours meant more results. Seeing my studies on digital reading translated into apps for children or family websites motivated me to do more. I put my work on a pedestal because of my health and social life.
I thought I was the exception. But when I read an article containing interviews with five successful female psychology researchers (P. Alexander et al. Educ. Psychol. This is the norm when it comes to top-performing academics. The people I admire the most are the ones who have passion for their work. But I now realize that, by hiding behind passion, I was excusing my contribution to a toxic burnout culture in research. Female, immigrant, non-native English speaking people like me are faced with more pressures than ever before. It is time to speak out.
I made the greatest sacrifices during my years on temporary postdoc and lectureship contracts, when not publishing an extra paper could have cost me the grant I needed to secure next year’s salary. I have been told by my mentor that the passport to academia is publications. A doctor told me ice would ease my permanent carpal tunnel syndrome, so I typed wearing iced wrist splints.
Not being a native English speaker, I had to put in extra hours for each paper. The fear of being misinterpreted added to the stress of conference presentations and resulted in headaches and fatigue, which I still experience, which is why I still use the wrong word.
I was sucked into a negative spiral by the pressure to perform. When I felt stressed, I doubted myself, feared saying ‘no’, overcompensated by saying ‘yes’ to extra tasks, and became more stressed. I cut back on spending time with friends and on sleep. My then-boyfriend told me I was married to my computer and cut our holiday short when he saw me typing a paper on the beach. The ticket inspector on the late-night commuter train knew me because I sometimes overslept. When I had a bout of autoimmune illness, my family was not surprised.
Through a combination of hard work and luck, I got a permanent position early in my career. But the workload has only grown heavier as I have climbed the career ladder, with increasing requests for mentoring, article and grant reviews, departmental duties, committee memberships, and voluntary contributions of time and expertise to professional societies. If my performance lags behind a grant, it could jeopardize several people’s salaries, as the costs of making mistakes are higher.
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00241-8
How I Meteorized My Work: How I Lost My Anxiety and What I Don’t Do About My Work/Life Balance
But my anxiety has gone down. It helped if you started a family in Norway and moved to the UK for a better work–life balance. Beginning to take my childhood hobby of writing poetry seriously was the best thing I ever did for my mental health. I’m better organized in my calendar, blocking out time to write and don’t feel guilty setting out-of-office replies.
The extreme workload of my early career was unhealthy for me, and it’s unhealthy for others. The culture of overwork is harmful to groups that are disproportionately affected.
I see it as my responsibility to promote definitions of academic success that are not tied to extreme working hours. I interviewed female academics in the book “Inspirational Women in Academia: Supporting careers and Improving Minority Representation (2023)”, with my colleague, Loleta Fahad, who is head of career development at University College London. We openly share where we failed, what we wish we had known when we started working at a university and what those in power could do to address systemic discrimination.
The pursuit of science can be a lot of work since there is no limit to knowledge. But being passionate about our work should not be equated with working extreme hours. Extra pressure should not be put on women who are marginalized.