Nature 18 February 2010
A step towards transparency
The lot of women scientists would improve with more openness in policy and practice, argues Jan Bogg.
Jan Bogg
http://links.ealert.nature.com/ctt?kn=142&m=34637012&r=MjA1NzU2OTkyMgS2&b=2&j=Njc1MzkzOTES1&mt=1&rt=0
Policy-makers and university administrators have long wrangled over the barriers that hinder women's advancement in science. But there is one clear and obvious step many at universities and in industry could take in short order: improve transparency so that both the statistics of those who advance, and the process itself, are readily apparent.
My recent work, part of a project called Breaking Barriers, found that women, especially those at junior and mid-level grades, believe they do not experience sufficient transparency of information, policy and practice. The project included quantitative and qualitative interviews with more than 5,000 UK women working in various science posts, including research scientists, academics and health professionals.
Women in academia wanted transparency in terms of teaching load and its impact on research time. They also wanted consistent career-progress information from senior staff that reflected university policy — for example, if a human-resources document states that “an international reputation” is required to reach senior levels in academia, what does this really mean? Is it referring only to high-impact journal publications? Or are there more wide-ranging criteria?
Take one example in which providing statistics could help inform current and prospective female employees. In the United Kingdom, the General Medical Council has recognized that academic medicine is failing to attract and retain women, and that very few women reach the sector's highest levels.
Currently, almost 60% of UK medical students are female. But the higher the level, the rarer women become. Around 40% of lecturers are women, 28% of senior lecturers and 13% of professors. The number of women in professorial posts has increased by only 2% since 2004.
Reporting on the number of women in senior positions may seem a crude practice, but it does provide transparency and a basis for identifying blockages in the system. If the proportion of women in senior positions in an organization does not reflect the proportion in the grade below, then there is a need to investigate why this might be the case.
Change is happening, yet figures from many UK professional bodies demonstrate just how slow the progress is — with the number of senior women rising at a snail's pace. For example, the Sex and Power report, produced by the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission, examines women in the top positions of power and influence across the public and private sectors. It estimates that at the current rate it will be 73 years until there are equal numbers of men and women among the directors of the 100 leading companies on the stock exchange.
More needs to be done. Institutions should offer training in an attempt to alter attitudes, and should consider sanctions for managers who provide inadequate performance reviews or poor mentoring. Only by addressing such issues now will the next decade focus on real progress for women in science careers.
Jan Bogg is director of Breaking Barriers, a European Commission-funded programme addressing equality, diversity and career progression for women at the University of Liverpool, UK.
26 March 2010
New Report Explains 'Why So Few' Women in Science
New Report Explains 'Why So Few' Women in Science
by Jeffrey Mervis on March 22, 2010 4:56 PM
From the Science Policy Blog
ScienceInsider reported this week on a new report on women in science by the American Association of University Women that distills several recent reports on gender equity to provide a road map for those seeking improvements
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/03/new-report-explains-why-so-few-w.html
Anyone familiar with the cultural and environmental factors that make it harder for women to become scientists and engineers may not learn much from reading a new report, Why So Few?, by the American Association of University Women. That's because the report, out today, summarizes the findings of eight major gender equity studies of the past decade.
The repetition is OK with the National Science Foundation, which traditionally supports researchers trying to create new knowledge. That's because its $250,000 grant to AAUW was aimed at sharing that knowledge with people who can make a difference, says Jolene Jesse, who runs NSF's Research on Gender in Science and Engineering program.
"We want to get what we know into the hands of the practitioners," Jesse explains. "And our definition of practitioner includes teachers and faculty members, guidance counselors, parents, and anybody who can have an impact on a girl's choice of a career in science."
The new report analyzes several factors that can influence whether girls decide to study science and pursue it as a career. It summarizes recent studies on topics ranging from gender stereotypes and self-assessment of talent to how spatial visualization, an important skill for a budding scientist, can be improved with practice. It cites how small changes in the culture of some academic departments have been found to have a big impact on attracting and retaining women. And it notes an unconscious societal bias against women entering so-called "masculine" professions.
AAUW didn't want to simply document what are often called "best practices" and "hope for the best," explains Catherine Hill, the lead author on the 134-page report. "Part of the problem with looking at successful models is that it's hard to judge their impact," she says. "So we began by looking at what's new in the research, and thinking about what will help move the discussion forward."
The need "to distill what we already know," as Jesse describes the AAUW report, arises from what she and others see as the narrow perspectives of many scientists and engineers. "Most scientists don't read outside their disciplines," says Hill, who holds a doctorate in public policy and has studied gender policy issues. "And they are very busy people. Some of them may not even know how many women are in their department. In addition, there's something very powerful about documenting what exists, as well as knowing what your peers are doing."
Also today, an ongoing survey of U.S. science education sponsored by the Bayer Corporation reports that "significant numbers of women and underrepresented minority chemists and chemical engineers say they were discouraged from pursuing" a career in science and engineering at some point in their lives. The 14th annual survey polled 1226 female, African-American, Hispanic, and Native American members of the American Chemical Society.
by Jeffrey Mervis on March 22, 2010 4:56 PM
From the Science Policy Blog
ScienceInsider reported this week on a new report on women in science by the American Association of University Women that distills several recent reports on gender equity to provide a road map for those seeking improvements
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/03/new-report-explains-why-so-few-w.html
Anyone familiar with the cultural and environmental factors that make it harder for women to become scientists and engineers may not learn much from reading a new report, Why So Few?, by the American Association of University Women. That's because the report, out today, summarizes the findings of eight major gender equity studies of the past decade.
The repetition is OK with the National Science Foundation, which traditionally supports researchers trying to create new knowledge. That's because its $250,000 grant to AAUW was aimed at sharing that knowledge with people who can make a difference, says Jolene Jesse, who runs NSF's Research on Gender in Science and Engineering program.
"We want to get what we know into the hands of the practitioners," Jesse explains. "And our definition of practitioner includes teachers and faculty members, guidance counselors, parents, and anybody who can have an impact on a girl's choice of a career in science."
The new report analyzes several factors that can influence whether girls decide to study science and pursue it as a career. It summarizes recent studies on topics ranging from gender stereotypes and self-assessment of talent to how spatial visualization, an important skill for a budding scientist, can be improved with practice. It cites how small changes in the culture of some academic departments have been found to have a big impact on attracting and retaining women. And it notes an unconscious societal bias against women entering so-called "masculine" professions.
AAUW didn't want to simply document what are often called "best practices" and "hope for the best," explains Catherine Hill, the lead author on the 134-page report. "Part of the problem with looking at successful models is that it's hard to judge their impact," she says. "So we began by looking at what's new in the research, and thinking about what will help move the discussion forward."
The need "to distill what we already know," as Jesse describes the AAUW report, arises from what she and others see as the narrow perspectives of many scientists and engineers. "Most scientists don't read outside their disciplines," says Hill, who holds a doctorate in public policy and has studied gender policy issues. "And they are very busy people. Some of them may not even know how many women are in their department. In addition, there's something very powerful about documenting what exists, as well as knowing what your peers are doing."
Also today, an ongoing survey of U.S. science education sponsored by the Bayer Corporation reports that "significant numbers of women and underrepresented minority chemists and chemical engineers say they were discouraged from pursuing" a career in science and engineering at some point in their lives. The 14th annual survey polled 1226 female, African-American, Hispanic, and Native American members of the American Chemical Society.
12 February 2010
INTELLIGENT WOMEN SELECTIONS
http://www.intelligent_women.blogspot.com
Nature 4 February 2010 Volume 463 Number 7281
Women: diversity among leaders is there if you look
Nancy C. Andrews, Sally Kornbluth and Doug Stokke
http://links.ealert.nature.com/ctt?kn=27&m=34602524&r=MjA1NzU2OTkyMgS2&b=2&j=NjY4MTM1NjES1&mt=1&rt=0
A disappointing myopia seems to have afflicted your '2020 visions' (Nature 463, 26–32; 2010), with just one female among the 20 contributors. This sends the wrong message at a time when women scientists are still striving for better representation. Diversity among thought leaders is there if you look for it. You no longer have to look far among academics. Today, for example, women of vision are heads of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Harvard, Princeton and Brown universities; and the universities of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Cambridge. Consider the Nobel prize. In 2009, it was awarded to five women (three of them scientists) and eight men, the narrowest gender gap since its inception. The scientific community in 2020 should reflect the talent pipeline of 2010. Women are now well placed, if they stay the course, to enhance diversity in science. But they will need encouragement, support and opportunities if the barriers that have traditionally stymied diversity are to drop away.
Women: why just one to represent half the workforce?
Joan M. Herbers
http://links.ealert.nature.com/ctt?kn=30&m=34602524&r=MjA1NzU2OTkyMgS2&b=2&j=NjY4MTM1NjES1&mt=1&rt=0
your prognostications about the future of science (Nature 463, 26–32; 2010), you might have featured only women as authors, given that the ancient prophesying Sibyls were always female. However, there was just one woman among the twenty writers. We trust that ten years from now we shall not have to remind Nature that nearly half of working scientists (and Nature readers) are women.
http://www.intelligent_women.blogspot.com
Nature 4 February 2010 Volume 463 Number 7281
Women: diversity among leaders is there if you look
Nancy C. Andrews, Sally Kornbluth and Doug Stokke
http://links.ealert.nature.com/ctt?kn=27&m=34602524&r=MjA1NzU2OTkyMgS2&b=2&j=NjY4MTM1NjES1&mt=1&rt=0
A disappointing myopia seems to have afflicted your '2020 visions' (Nature 463, 26–32; 2010), with just one female among the 20 contributors. This sends the wrong message at a time when women scientists are still striving for better representation. Diversity among thought leaders is there if you look for it. You no longer have to look far among academics. Today, for example, women of vision are heads of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Harvard, Princeton and Brown universities; and the universities of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Cambridge. Consider the Nobel prize. In 2009, it was awarded to five women (three of them scientists) and eight men, the narrowest gender gap since its inception. The scientific community in 2020 should reflect the talent pipeline of 2010. Women are now well placed, if they stay the course, to enhance diversity in science. But they will need encouragement, support and opportunities if the barriers that have traditionally stymied diversity are to drop away.
Women: why just one to represent half the workforce?
Joan M. Herbers
http://links.ealert.nature.com/ctt?kn=30&m=34602524&r=MjA1NzU2OTkyMgS2&b=2&j=NjY4MTM1NjES1&mt=1&rt=0
your prognostications about the future of science (Nature 463, 26–32; 2010), you might have featured only women as authors, given that the ancient prophesying Sibyls were always female. However, there was just one woman among the twenty writers. We trust that ten years from now we shall not have to remind Nature that nearly half of working scientists (and Nature readers) are women.
30 October 2007
Nature 448, 98-100 (July 2007)Beyond the glass ceiling
Kendall Powell
http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2007/070705/full/nj7149-098a.html
Kendall Powell is a freelance science writer based in Broomfield, Colorado.
Women and under-represented minorities are earning historically high numbers of science doctorates in the United States. So why aren't they making it to the professorial ranks? Kendall Powell investigates.
Beyond the glass ceiling
T. HOROWITZ/CORBIS
Aaron Velasco describes himself as the only US-born Latino seismologist in the country. As a faculty member at the University of Texas, El Paso, he is part of a rare group of under-represented minorities who make it into tenure-track academic positions in the United States. His story illustrates part of the reason for the abysmally low numbers of others like him.
Beyond the glass ceiling
"I honestly could not afford to become a postdoctoral fellow," says Velasco, recalling how the enormous debt he had built up during almost ten years of studying beyond high school forced him to seek something better than a postdoc's salary. In search of financial security, Velasco went straight into industry after graduate school, then found his way back to academia. Many other excellent minority graduates cite economic disadvantage as a major reason for why they don't end up in academic positions � even though the number of minority PhDs is on the rise.
If academia is to offer varied role models and perspectives for a diverse population of students, it must become more welcoming to women and ethnic minorities, leaders of diversity efforts say. Industry has already learned the value of diversity. In a 2003 amicus brief in support of the University of Michigan's affirmative-action admissions policies, 65 Fortune 500 firms argued that efforts to increase diversity improve innovation, productivity and global competition.Women and minorities suffer from the effects of isolation once they enter the upper ranks of academia. Both groups perceive academia as an unfriendly environment, and both suffer from an implicit bias against them in the hiring process.
For women, the clash of their biological clock with the tenure clock, along with the effort of balancing work and family duties, is a huge barrier to advancing up the academic ladder. For minorities, financial and geographical constraints make academia a less attractive choice than industry. Attempts to remove barriers and to mend holes in the pipeline have met with mixed success.
Leaving academia
In 2003, 51% of the US population was female and more than 25% of the population was from a minority group under-represented in science: African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans. Women earned well over one-third of the science and engineering doctorates awarded in 2003�04 and African American and Latino doctorates have steadily increased during the past ten years (see Tables 1 and 2).Beyond the glass ceilingBeyond the glass ceilingBut women hold fewer than one-third of all science and engineering faculty posts, and just 18% of full professorships. For minorities, the numbers are below 10% and 6.7%, respectively. When the numbers are dissected at the disciplinary level, many fields find they are doing far worse in hiring talented women and minorities than should be expected, given the numbers of doctorates they award to those groups (see Table 3). Although many 'diversity in science' programmes have been in place for more than 30 years, the faculty in most US academic science departments has remained overwhelmingly white and male.Beyond the glass ceilingThe numbers show that not only are women having a hard time reaching parity in the hiring process, but that they continue to struggle for parity at all levels of success such as making tenure, advancing to administrative positions, and gaining national recognition for scientific achievements. These numbers also send a striking message to the next generation." think young women looking at the PhD-to-faculty transition are being more pragmatic, looking down the road and saying, 'I don't want to beat my head against a wall for the next 20 years,'" says Donna Dean, president of the association for Women in Science (AWIS) in Washington DC. The AWIS began in 1971 to help women succeed at the mid-career stage. Dean says the focus has shifted to earlier stages, to recognize that women fight an uphill battle from the minute they earn their doctorates.Women and minorities must both deal with implicit bias, a problem that is well-documented in the social-science literature, but one that has garnered little attention from the science sector until recently. Dean describes the problem of implicit bias in these terms: "People are most comfortable with people who think and look like themselves."This type of bias cuts across all divides and has been shown to affect everything from basketball refereeing calls to hiring practices. In addition, a strong gender bias has been found in workplace scenarios, with both men and women consistently overrating men and underrating women in job qualifications (see Virginia Valian's chapter in Why Aren't More Women in Science? (eds S. J. Ceci and W. M. Williams); American Psychological Association Press, 2006).Bias cuts"When you have homogenous, privileged groups it is hard for them to see that their decisions are inhibiting their excellence," says Meg Urry, an astrophysicist and the first woman to chair the physics department at Yale University. Most scientists think they operate in a meritocracy, rewarding excellent research irrespective of colour or gender lines. But the data show that is simply not the case, says Urry. And many scientists, she says, are "unaware of that data and unaware that they have internal biases".
Beyond the glass ceiling
O. FRANKEN/CORBIS
Women remain under-represented at the higher end of the academic scale.To change that, several groups have begun highlighting research on bias at workshops for different science disciplines. Chemists are leading the way with the help of the Committee on the Advancement of Women Chemists based in Eugene, Oregon, by holding a workshop last year for 55 chairs from the top chemistry departments around the country (see 'Chemistry case study').Programmes to recruit and retain university minority students in science have made steady, if small, improvements. The numbers of science bachelor's degrees awarded to minority students, about 16% of the total, is now commensurate with the number of minorities enrolled in university. The number of African American and Latino science doctorates have increased about 20% during the past ten years."I'm encouraged by the numbers of kids at the beginning of the pipeline," says Velasco. "But my worry is that these kids will want to go into academia and find their opportunities are limited there."For minorities, their small numbers mean that feelings of isolation begin early and are likely to persist throughout a career (see 'A political hot potato'). Many under-represented minority students come from disadvantaged backgrounds that make both financial concerns and extended family responsibilities rise to the top of the priority list when they consider a career move.Isiah Warner, a chemist at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, has overseen the 15-year transformation of that department into the top producer of African American chemistry PhDs. But, he notes, financial realities and the unfriendly climate of academia conspire to lure a huge portion of those students directly into industry positions."They see me work 8�12 hours a day, seven days a week for a job that pays only two-thirds of your salary, meanwhile you have to hustle the other third of your salary and grant money constantly," says Warner. That's compared with an industry job offering a $90,000 salary out of graduate school and a 40-hour work week. "Which would you choose?" he asks.At the annual meeting of the National Organization for the advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE), recruiters from industry make contacts with promising graduates as early as the third year of graduate school. Students who continue in academia are the rare, passionate few, says Warner.He and Velasco both say it is imperative that senior academic scientists do a better job of presenting the positive aspects of academia, including intellectual freedom and flexibility, and ultimately higher salaries and stability. The national meetings of NOBCChE and the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) give senior scientists the chance to mentor students across campus borders. They also fend off feelings of isolation and foster networking and professional development.Diversity leaders say that if members of faculty search committees were to talent spot at these meetings like industry recruiters, they would see that, despite myths to the contrary, there are enough women or minority candidates to go around. NOBCChE meetings attract 600 students and SACNAS 1,000, with ever-increasing numbers of postdocs as well. Urry notes that some departments have been creative in attracting under-represented candidates in the same years that other departments claim there's a shortage."Some people understand how to do it by beating the bushes, being very aggressive, and paying attention to these biases," says Urry. "You are sitting on a search committee, not a sit-and-wait-for-it-to-come-over-the-transom committee." Academic departments should recruit at meetings, offer incentives to match industry, and let go of the sacrosanct 'open search' ideology that relies on job ads alone, says Urry. Departments should also consider how they can harness talent by employing the husbands and wives of staff members, catching available talent outside a full-scale search, or by doing broad-based searches and cluster hires of two or three female or minority candidates.Urry says she often hears search-committee members say that they must hire a particular specialist because the department's students demand that expertise. "If your students are 25% minority and 50% female," she asks, "don't you think they demand professors who look like them?"Chemistry case studyChemistry as a field has made some progress towards retaining talented women and minority chemists in the academic ranks. Still, although women gain roughly a third of chemistry doctorates, they hold only 13% of chemistry faculty positions.In January 2006, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health and chemistry leaders sponsored a workshop in which 55 chairs from the top-ranked departments around the country gathered to face the problem and take action to address it. The workshop highlighted research on implicit bias and on issues affecting women's ability to succeed in academia.Before the workshop, when participants were asked why women were not being recruited, hired and retained in their departments, the participants blamed factors largely beyond their control: too few women in the applicant pool, losing females to other departments and no money for recruiting both members of a couple. After the training on implicit bias, participants were more likely to admit to a lack of commitment or downright opposition to hiring female faculty members, says Geraldine Richmond, a chemist at the University of Oregon in Eugene who is evaluating the workshop's impact.Participants left with a commitment to implement at least two items within their departments or institutions, such as doubling the number of female applicants in the next faculty search, or advocating subsidized childcare. And the participants agreed to evaluate the effectiveness of their efforts in the future.Physics and geosciences have followed suit with their own gender-equity workshops. Chemistry leaders are now planning a workshop to address the lack of minority faculty members, with the goal of encouraging departments to cultivate at least one minority faculty candidate in the next five years.Biological sciences, which have similar gender imbalances, could learn from other disciplines' scientific approach and evaluation of the issue, says Donna Dean of the Association for Women in Science in Washington DC. She notes that the funding agencies for biomedical research have "not stepped up to the plate in paying attention to the changing demographics and what's happening to PhDs as they move into faculty positions".Kendall PowellA political hot potatoOne of the obstacles facing minority biomedical scientists could be the way US government funding is distributed through the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) in Bethesda, Maryland. Its Division of Minority Opportunities in Research (MORE) is the largest funder of minority programmes through the National Institutes of Health and has greatly influenced the upward trend of minority PhD numbers. But progress in diversifying faculty has been disappointing or nonexistent, according to Jeremy Berg, director of the NIGMS.In 2005, MORE was jolted by a working group's report that, although almost 60% of MORE's budget was going to programmes at minority-serving institutions, more than 70% of minority students are receiving their BS degrees from majority institutions. Even though the topic was a "political hot potato", says working group co-chair Virginia Zakian, a molecular biologist at Princeton University in New Jersey, the group recommended that the MORE budget should more closely reflect the realities of where minority students are educated.Berg, however, says that it would be a mistake to shift MORE money away from minority-serving institutions towards others that have significantly more resources. Instead, he and the NIGMS are considering how best to restructure MORE programmes so that they not only encourage minority students to take PhDs, but also see them through to faculty positions.Berg says the best way to do that is to make changes to programmes at the institutional level, such as the NIGMS' T32 student training grants which stipulate that the receiving department must have a diversity programme in place. Also, says Berg, there should be partnerships between undergraduate universities and top-tier graduate programmes to ensure that minority PhD students aren't starting off at a disadvantage in the academic career track.Although Berg and Zakian may disagree on how to get there, they agree wholeheartedly that diversifying the biomedical faculty is vital. "This is not an issue of social justice or equal opportunity," says Berg. "The biomedical workforce is much weaker than we need it to be and student diversity is [outstripping] faculty diversity."Kendall Powell
Kendall Powell
http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2007/070705/full/nj7149-098a.html
Kendall Powell is a freelance science writer based in Broomfield, Colorado.
Women and under-represented minorities are earning historically high numbers of science doctorates in the United States. So why aren't they making it to the professorial ranks? Kendall Powell investigates.
Beyond the glass ceiling
T. HOROWITZ/CORBIS
Aaron Velasco describes himself as the only US-born Latino seismologist in the country. As a faculty member at the University of Texas, El Paso, he is part of a rare group of under-represented minorities who make it into tenure-track academic positions in the United States. His story illustrates part of the reason for the abysmally low numbers of others like him.
Beyond the glass ceiling
"I honestly could not afford to become a postdoctoral fellow," says Velasco, recalling how the enormous debt he had built up during almost ten years of studying beyond high school forced him to seek something better than a postdoc's salary. In search of financial security, Velasco went straight into industry after graduate school, then found his way back to academia. Many other excellent minority graduates cite economic disadvantage as a major reason for why they don't end up in academic positions � even though the number of minority PhDs is on the rise.
If academia is to offer varied role models and perspectives for a diverse population of students, it must become more welcoming to women and ethnic minorities, leaders of diversity efforts say. Industry has already learned the value of diversity. In a 2003 amicus brief in support of the University of Michigan's affirmative-action admissions policies, 65 Fortune 500 firms argued that efforts to increase diversity improve innovation, productivity and global competition.Women and minorities suffer from the effects of isolation once they enter the upper ranks of academia. Both groups perceive academia as an unfriendly environment, and both suffer from an implicit bias against them in the hiring process.
For women, the clash of their biological clock with the tenure clock, along with the effort of balancing work and family duties, is a huge barrier to advancing up the academic ladder. For minorities, financial and geographical constraints make academia a less attractive choice than industry. Attempts to remove barriers and to mend holes in the pipeline have met with mixed success.
Leaving academia
In 2003, 51% of the US population was female and more than 25% of the population was from a minority group under-represented in science: African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans. Women earned well over one-third of the science and engineering doctorates awarded in 2003�04 and African American and Latino doctorates have steadily increased during the past ten years (see Tables 1 and 2).Beyond the glass ceilingBeyond the glass ceilingBut women hold fewer than one-third of all science and engineering faculty posts, and just 18% of full professorships. For minorities, the numbers are below 10% and 6.7%, respectively. When the numbers are dissected at the disciplinary level, many fields find they are doing far worse in hiring talented women and minorities than should be expected, given the numbers of doctorates they award to those groups (see Table 3). Although many 'diversity in science' programmes have been in place for more than 30 years, the faculty in most US academic science departments has remained overwhelmingly white and male.Beyond the glass ceilingThe numbers show that not only are women having a hard time reaching parity in the hiring process, but that they continue to struggle for parity at all levels of success such as making tenure, advancing to administrative positions, and gaining national recognition for scientific achievements. These numbers also send a striking message to the next generation." think young women looking at the PhD-to-faculty transition are being more pragmatic, looking down the road and saying, 'I don't want to beat my head against a wall for the next 20 years,'" says Donna Dean, president of the association for Women in Science (AWIS) in Washington DC. The AWIS began in 1971 to help women succeed at the mid-career stage. Dean says the focus has shifted to earlier stages, to recognize that women fight an uphill battle from the minute they earn their doctorates.Women and minorities must both deal with implicit bias, a problem that is well-documented in the social-science literature, but one that has garnered little attention from the science sector until recently. Dean describes the problem of implicit bias in these terms: "People are most comfortable with people who think and look like themselves."This type of bias cuts across all divides and has been shown to affect everything from basketball refereeing calls to hiring practices. In addition, a strong gender bias has been found in workplace scenarios, with both men and women consistently overrating men and underrating women in job qualifications (see Virginia Valian's chapter in Why Aren't More Women in Science? (eds S. J. Ceci and W. M. Williams); American Psychological Association Press, 2006).Bias cuts"When you have homogenous, privileged groups it is hard for them to see that their decisions are inhibiting their excellence," says Meg Urry, an astrophysicist and the first woman to chair the physics department at Yale University. Most scientists think they operate in a meritocracy, rewarding excellent research irrespective of colour or gender lines. But the data show that is simply not the case, says Urry. And many scientists, she says, are "unaware of that data and unaware that they have internal biases".
Beyond the glass ceiling
O. FRANKEN/CORBIS
Women remain under-represented at the higher end of the academic scale.To change that, several groups have begun highlighting research on bias at workshops for different science disciplines. Chemists are leading the way with the help of the Committee on the Advancement of Women Chemists based in Eugene, Oregon, by holding a workshop last year for 55 chairs from the top chemistry departments around the country (see 'Chemistry case study').Programmes to recruit and retain university minority students in science have made steady, if small, improvements. The numbers of science bachelor's degrees awarded to minority students, about 16% of the total, is now commensurate with the number of minorities enrolled in university. The number of African American and Latino science doctorates have increased about 20% during the past ten years."I'm encouraged by the numbers of kids at the beginning of the pipeline," says Velasco. "But my worry is that these kids will want to go into academia and find their opportunities are limited there."For minorities, their small numbers mean that feelings of isolation begin early and are likely to persist throughout a career (see 'A political hot potato'). Many under-represented minority students come from disadvantaged backgrounds that make both financial concerns and extended family responsibilities rise to the top of the priority list when they consider a career move.Isiah Warner, a chemist at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, has overseen the 15-year transformation of that department into the top producer of African American chemistry PhDs. But, he notes, financial realities and the unfriendly climate of academia conspire to lure a huge portion of those students directly into industry positions."They see me work 8�12 hours a day, seven days a week for a job that pays only two-thirds of your salary, meanwhile you have to hustle the other third of your salary and grant money constantly," says Warner. That's compared with an industry job offering a $90,000 salary out of graduate school and a 40-hour work week. "Which would you choose?" he asks.At the annual meeting of the National Organization for the advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE), recruiters from industry make contacts with promising graduates as early as the third year of graduate school. Students who continue in academia are the rare, passionate few, says Warner.He and Velasco both say it is imperative that senior academic scientists do a better job of presenting the positive aspects of academia, including intellectual freedom and flexibility, and ultimately higher salaries and stability. The national meetings of NOBCChE and the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) give senior scientists the chance to mentor students across campus borders. They also fend off feelings of isolation and foster networking and professional development.Diversity leaders say that if members of faculty search committees were to talent spot at these meetings like industry recruiters, they would see that, despite myths to the contrary, there are enough women or minority candidates to go around. NOBCChE meetings attract 600 students and SACNAS 1,000, with ever-increasing numbers of postdocs as well. Urry notes that some departments have been creative in attracting under-represented candidates in the same years that other departments claim there's a shortage."Some people understand how to do it by beating the bushes, being very aggressive, and paying attention to these biases," says Urry. "You are sitting on a search committee, not a sit-and-wait-for-it-to-come-over-the-transom committee." Academic departments should recruit at meetings, offer incentives to match industry, and let go of the sacrosanct 'open search' ideology that relies on job ads alone, says Urry. Departments should also consider how they can harness talent by employing the husbands and wives of staff members, catching available talent outside a full-scale search, or by doing broad-based searches and cluster hires of two or three female or minority candidates.Urry says she often hears search-committee members say that they must hire a particular specialist because the department's students demand that expertise. "If your students are 25% minority and 50% female," she asks, "don't you think they demand professors who look like them?"Chemistry case studyChemistry as a field has made some progress towards retaining talented women and minority chemists in the academic ranks. Still, although women gain roughly a third of chemistry doctorates, they hold only 13% of chemistry faculty positions.In January 2006, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health and chemistry leaders sponsored a workshop in which 55 chairs from the top-ranked departments around the country gathered to face the problem and take action to address it. The workshop highlighted research on implicit bias and on issues affecting women's ability to succeed in academia.Before the workshop, when participants were asked why women were not being recruited, hired and retained in their departments, the participants blamed factors largely beyond their control: too few women in the applicant pool, losing females to other departments and no money for recruiting both members of a couple. After the training on implicit bias, participants were more likely to admit to a lack of commitment or downright opposition to hiring female faculty members, says Geraldine Richmond, a chemist at the University of Oregon in Eugene who is evaluating the workshop's impact.Participants left with a commitment to implement at least two items within their departments or institutions, such as doubling the number of female applicants in the next faculty search, or advocating subsidized childcare. And the participants agreed to evaluate the effectiveness of their efforts in the future.Physics and geosciences have followed suit with their own gender-equity workshops. Chemistry leaders are now planning a workshop to address the lack of minority faculty members, with the goal of encouraging departments to cultivate at least one minority faculty candidate in the next five years.Biological sciences, which have similar gender imbalances, could learn from other disciplines' scientific approach and evaluation of the issue, says Donna Dean of the Association for Women in Science in Washington DC. She notes that the funding agencies for biomedical research have "not stepped up to the plate in paying attention to the changing demographics and what's happening to PhDs as they move into faculty positions".Kendall PowellA political hot potatoOne of the obstacles facing minority biomedical scientists could be the way US government funding is distributed through the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) in Bethesda, Maryland. Its Division of Minority Opportunities in Research (MORE) is the largest funder of minority programmes through the National Institutes of Health and has greatly influenced the upward trend of minority PhD numbers. But progress in diversifying faculty has been disappointing or nonexistent, according to Jeremy Berg, director of the NIGMS.In 2005, MORE was jolted by a working group's report that, although almost 60% of MORE's budget was going to programmes at minority-serving institutions, more than 70% of minority students are receiving their BS degrees from majority institutions. Even though the topic was a "political hot potato", says working group co-chair Virginia Zakian, a molecular biologist at Princeton University in New Jersey, the group recommended that the MORE budget should more closely reflect the realities of where minority students are educated.Berg, however, says that it would be a mistake to shift MORE money away from minority-serving institutions towards others that have significantly more resources. Instead, he and the NIGMS are considering how best to restructure MORE programmes so that they not only encourage minority students to take PhDs, but also see them through to faculty positions.Berg says the best way to do that is to make changes to programmes at the institutional level, such as the NIGMS' T32 student training grants which stipulate that the receiving department must have a diversity programme in place. Also, says Berg, there should be partnerships between undergraduate universities and top-tier graduate programmes to ensure that minority PhD students aren't starting off at a disadvantage in the academic career track.Although Berg and Zakian may disagree on how to get there, they agree wholeheartedly that diversifying the biomedical faculty is vital. "This is not an issue of social justice or equal opportunity," says Berg. "The biomedical workforce is much weaker than we need it to be and student diversity is [outstripping] faculty diversity."Kendall Powell
Nature 448, 98-100 (July 2007)Beyond the glass ceilingKendall Powell1http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2007/070705/full/nj7149-098a.html 1. Kendall Powell is a freelance science writer based in Broomfield, Colorado.Women and under-represented minorities are earning historically high numbers of science doctorates in the United States. So why aren't they making it to the professorial ranks? Kendall Powell investigates.Beyond the glass ceilingT. HOROWITZ/CORBISAaron Velasco describes himself as the only US-born Latino seismologist in the country. As a faculty member at the University of Texas, El Paso, he is part of a rare group of under-represented minorities who make it into tenure-track academic positions in the United States. His story illustrates part of the reason for the abysmally low numbers of others like him.Beyond the glass ceiling"I honestly could not afford to become a postdoctoral fellow," says Velasco, recalling how the enormous debt he had built up during almost ten years of studying beyond high school forced him to seek something better than a postdoc's salary. In search of financial security, Velasco went straight into industry after graduate school, then found his way back to academia. Many other excellent minority graduates cite economic disadvantage as a major reason for why they don't end up in academic positions � even though the number of minority PhDs is on the rise. I honestly could not afford to become a postdoctoral fellow. Aaron VelascoIf academia is to offer varied role models and perspectives for a diverse population of students, it must become more welcoming to women and ethnic minorities, leaders of diversity efforts say. Industry has already learned the value of diversity. In a 2003 amicus brief in support of the University of Michigan's affirmative-action admissions policies, 65 Fortune 500 firms argued that efforts to increase diversity improve innovation, productivity and global competition.Women and minorities suffer from the effects of isolation once they enter the upper ranks of academia. Both groups perceive academia as an unfriendly environment, and both suffer from an implicit bias against them in the hiring process.For women, the clash of their biological clock with the tenure clock, along with the effort of balancing work and family duties, is a huge barrier to advancing up the academic ladder. For minorities, financial and geographical constraints make academia a less attractive choice than industry. Attempts to remove barriers and to mend holes in the pipeline have met with mixed success.Top of pageLeaving academiaIn 2003, 51% of the US population was female and more than 25% of the population was from a minority group under-represented in science: African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans. Women earned well over one-third of the science and engineering doctorates awarded in 2003�04 and African American and Latino doctorates have steadily increased during the past ten years (see Tables 1 and 2).Beyond the glass ceilingBeyond the glass ceilingBut women hold fewer than one-third of all science and engineering faculty posts, and just 18% of full professorships. For minorities, the numbers are below 10% and 6.7%, respectively. When the numbers are dissected at the disciplinary level, many fields find they are doing far worse in hiring talented women and minorities than should be expected, given the numbers of doctorates they award to those groups (see Table 3). Although many 'diversity in science' programmes have been in place for more than 30 years, the faculty in most US academic science departments has remained overwhelmingly white and male.Beyond the glass ceilingThe numbers show that not only are women having a hard time reaching parity in the hiring process, but that they continue to struggle for parity at all levels of success such as making tenure, advancing to administrative positions, and gaining national recognition for scientific achievements. These numbers also send a striking message to the next generation." think young women looking at the PhD-to-faculty transition are being more pragmatic, looking down the road and saying, 'I don't want to beat my head against a wall for the next 20 years,'" says Donna Dean, president of the association for Women in Science (AWIS) in Washington DC. The AWIS began in 1971 to help women succeed at the mid-career stage. Dean says the focus has shifted to earlier stages, to recognize that women fight an uphill battle from the minute they earn their doctorates.Women and minorities must both deal with implicit bias, a problem that is well-documented in the social-science literature, but one that has garnered little attention from the science sector until recently. Dean describes the problem of implicit bias in these terms: "People are most comfortable with people who think and look like themselves."This type of bias cuts across all divides and has been shown to affect everything from basketball refereeing calls to hiring practices. In addition, a strong gender bias has been found in workplace scenarios, with both men and women consistently overrating men and underrating women in job qualifications (see Virginia Valian's chapter in Why Aren't More Women in Science? (eds S. J. Ceci and W. M. Williams); American Psychological Association Press, 2006).Bias cuts"When you have homogenous, privileged groups it is hard for them to see that their decisions are inhibiting their excellence," says Meg Urry, an astrophysicist and the first woman to chair the physics department at Yale University. Most scientists think they operate in a meritocracy, rewarding excellent research irrespective of colour or gender lines. But the data show that is simply not the case, says Urry. And many scientists, she says, are "unaware of that data and unaware that they have internal biases".Beyond the glass ceilingO. FRANKEN/CORBISWomen remain under-represented at the higher end of the academic scale.To change that, several groups have begun highlighting research on bias at workshops for different science disciplines. Chemists are leading the way with the help of the Committee on the Advancement of Women Chemists based in Eugene, Oregon, by holding a workshop last year for 55 chairs from the top chemistry departments around the country (see 'Chemistry case study').Programmes to recruit and retain university minority students in science have made steady, if small, improvements. The numbers of science bachelor's degrees awarded to minority students, about 16% of the total, is now commensurate with the number of minorities enrolled in university. The number of African American and Latino science doctorates have increased about 20% during the past ten years."I'm encouraged by the numbers of kids at the beginning of the pipeline," says Velasco. "But my worry is that these kids will want to go into academia and find their opportunities are limited there."For minorities, their small numbers mean that feelings of isolation begin early and are likely to persist throughout a career (see 'A political hot potato'). Many under-represented minority students come from disadvantaged backgrounds that make both financial concerns and extended family responsibilities rise to the top of the priority list when they consider a career move.Isiah Warner, a chemist at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, has overseen the 15-year transformation of that department into the top producer of African American chemistry PhDs. But, he notes, financial realities and the unfriendly climate of academia conspire to lure a huge portion of those students directly into industry positions."They see me work 8�12 hours a day, seven days a week for a job that pays only two-thirds of your salary, meanwhile you have to hustle the other third of your salary and grant money constantly," says Warner. That's compared with an industry job offering a $90,000 salary out of graduate school and a 40-hour work week. "Which would you choose?" he asks.At the annual meeting of the National Organization for the advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE), recruiters from industry make contacts with promising graduates as early as the third year of graduate school. Students who continue in academia are the rare, passionate few, says Warner.He and Velasco both say it is imperative that senior academic scientists do a better job of presenting the positive aspects of academia, including intellectual freedom and flexibility, and ultimately higher salaries and stability. The national meetings of NOBCChE and the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) give senior scientists the chance to mentor students across campus borders. They also fend off feelings of isolation and foster networking and professional development.Diversity leaders say that if members of faculty search committees were to talent spot at these meetings like industry recruiters, they would see that, despite myths to the contrary, there are enough women or minority candidates to go around. NOBCChE meetings attract 600 students and SACNAS 1,000, with ever-increasing numbers of postdocs as well. Urry notes that some departments have been creative in attracting under-represented candidates in the same years that other departments claim there's a shortage."Some people understand how to do it by beating the bushes, being very aggressive, and paying attention to these biases," says Urry. "You are sitting on a search committee, not a sit-and-wait-for-it-to-come-over-the-transom committee." Academic departments should recruit at meetings, offer incentives to match industry, and let go of the sacrosanct 'open search' ideology that relies on job ads alone, says Urry. Departments should also consider how they can harness talent by employing the husbands and wives of staff members, catching available talent outside a full-scale search, or by doing broad-based searches and cluster hires of two or three female or minority candidates.Urry says she often hears search-committee members say that they must hire a particular specialist because the department's students demand that expertise. "If your students are 25% minority and 50% female," she asks, "don't you think they demand professors who look like them?"Chemistry case studyChemistry as a field has made some progress towards retaining talented women and minority chemists in the academic ranks. Still, although women gain roughly a third of chemistry doctorates, they hold only 13% of chemistry faculty positions.In January 2006, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health and chemistry leaders sponsored a workshop in which 55 chairs from the top-ranked departments around the country gathered to face the problem and take action to address it. The workshop highlighted research on implicit bias and on issues affecting women's ability to succeed in academia.Before the workshop, when participants were asked why women were not being recruited, hired and retained in their departments, the participants blamed factors largely beyond their control: too few women in the applicant pool, losing females to other departments and no money for recruiting both members of a couple. After the training on implicit bias, participants were more likely to admit to a lack of commitment or downright opposition to hiring female faculty members, says Geraldine Richmond, a chemist at the University of Oregon in Eugene who is evaluating the workshop's impact.Participants left with a commitment to implement at least two items within their departments or institutions, such as doubling the number of female applicants in the next faculty search, or advocating subsidized childcare. And the participants agreed to evaluate the effectiveness of their efforts in the future.Physics and geosciences have followed suit with their own gender-equity workshops. Chemistry leaders are now planning a workshop to address the lack of minority faculty members, with the goal of encouraging departments to cultivate at least one minority faculty candidate in the next five years.Biological sciences, which have similar gender imbalances, could learn from other disciplines' scientific approach and evaluation of the issue, says Donna Dean of the Association for Women in Science in Washington DC. She notes that the funding agencies for biomedical research have "not stepped up to the plate in paying attention to the changing demographics and what's happening to PhDs as they move into faculty positions".Kendall PowellA political hot potatoOne of the obstacles facing minority biomedical scientists could be the way US government funding is distributed through the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) in Bethesda, Maryland. Its Division of Minority Opportunities in Research (MORE) is the largest funder of minority programmes through the National Institutes of Health and has greatly influenced the upward trend of minority PhD numbers. But progress in diversifying faculty has been disappointing or nonexistent, according to Jeremy Berg, director of the NIGMS.In 2005, MORE was jolted by a working group's report that, although almost 60% of MORE's budget was going to programmes at minority-serving institutions, more than 70% of minority students are receiving their BS degrees from majority institutions. Even though the topic was a "political hot potato", says working group co-chair Virginia Zakian, a molecular biologist at Princeton University in New Jersey, the group recommended that the MORE budget should more closely reflect the realities of where minority students are educated.Berg, however, says that it would be a mistake to shift MORE money away from minority-serving institutions towards others that have significantly more resources. Instead, he and the NIGMS are considering how best to restructure MORE programmes so that they not only encourage minority students to take PhDs, but also see them through to faculty positions.Berg says the best way to do that is to make changes to programmes at the institutional level, such as the NIGMS' T32 student training grants which stipulate that the receiving department must have a diversity programme in place. Also, says Berg, there should be partnerships between undergraduate universities and top-tier graduate programmes to ensure that minority PhD students aren't starting off at a disadvantage in the academic career track.Although Berg and Zakian may disagree on how to get there, they agree wholeheartedly that diversifying the biomedical faculty is vital. "This is not an issue of social justice or equal opportunity," says Berg. "The biomedical workforce is much weaker than we need it to be and student diversity is [outstripping] faculty diversity."Kendall Powell
Closing the gender gapAcross Europe, women in science are typically outnumbered by men at every level. Magdalena Wutte explores how institutions, networking organizations and women themselves can help correct the imbalance.Magdalena Wuttehttp://ealerts.nature.com/cgi-bin24/DM/y/eewF0SpU7m0HjB0BWoY0EgArticle source: NatureNature 448, 101-102 (July 2007) doi:10.1038/nj7149-101a
Closing the gender gapMagdalena Wutte1
Magdalena Wutte is a former intern in Nature's Munich office. To discuss this article, contact the editorAcross Europe, women in science are typically outnumbered by men at every level. Magdalena Wutte explores how institutions, networking organizations and women themselves can help correct the imbalance.
A. REDPATH/CORBISAccording to the European Union (EU), this year is the 'European Year of Equal Opportunities for All'. This declaration, along with a slew of anti-discrimination legislation, suggests that the EU recognizes there's much to be done in the drive towards equality, as the numbers attest to. In the case of science, women remain under-represented, particularly at higher academic levels. And this disparity cannot simply be attributed to a lack of women pursuing science in the past: bias, it seems, remains.The EU has not been short of initiatives to try to reverse this trend � and progress is being made. Several groups have been established to improve networking among women, but governments and lobby groups can only do so much. Academic institutions � and women themselves � have their part to play in increasing women's participation in the scientific arena."The situation has improved a lot in the past 20 years," says Daniela Corda, director for research and development of the Consorzio Mario Negri Sud, a major research institution in Santa Maria Imbaro, Italy. But, she adds, growing awareness and an absence of open discrimination are not sufficient to substantially increase the number of women in higher academic positions.The most recent figures available suggest that Europe is still dealing with significant attrition by women after they've earned their PhDs (see Moving up or moving out). In 2006, the European Commission (EC) reported that although 40% of PhD students in the natural sciences are female, only 11.3% of the professor, research director and other top positions are occupied by women1. In engineering and technology, 21.9% of PhD students are female, but this total dips to 5.8% at the highest levels of academia1.Furthermore, the average proportion of women on scientific boards is 24% (Norway and Finland, with 48% and 47%, respectively, stand in clear contrast to countries such as Italy and Poland, with 13% and 7%)1. And research funding also suggests a gender gap; in 17 of 26 European countries, men have higher success rates for securing funding1.Top of page
Off-balanceThe EU has been trying to address this imbalance. So far, its greatest success has been within its own organizations. The EC has almost reached its own target, set in 1999, of 40% for women on scientific boards and agencies2. According to Johannes Klumpers, head of unit for 'science culture and gender issues' at the EC's directorate for research, the numbers have increased from around 10% in 1998 to about 34% in 2006.The Max Planck Institute's Mary Osborn recommends institution-wide changes to help recruit and support women scientists.Europe-wide, the EU would like to increase the number of women in higher scientific ranks to 25%3. The EU first started to address the issue in 1999, when it set up an evaluation committee known as the 'Helsinki Group'. The sociologists and natural scientists on the panel, all hailing from EU member countries, drafted reports on the situation in their countries. The group also appointed 'statistical correspondents', based at national universities or private institutes, in order to ensure European statistics were comparable across countries. The reports of the Helsinki Group and their correspondents serve as guidelines for the EU and individual countries.Mary Osborn, who is head of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in G�ttingen, Germany, and has chaired several panels on women in science thinks Europe would benefit from a programme similar to the US National Science Foundation's ADVANCE initiative. This programme provides funds to selected higher-education institutions to support institution-wide changes designed to increase participation and advancement of female scientists and engineers. These range from alteration of recruitment practice (such as actively campaigning for women when advertising jobs) to easing everyday life for scientists with children � for example, by creating day care centres or nurseries integrated into institutions.Top of page
Making contactThe EU's newest development is a central forum for exchange among women scientists across Europe, which had its first general assembly in April. The European Platform of Women Scientists (EPWS) is an umbrella organization for national women's networks and groups lobbying for women in science at EU level."It is a unique exchange forum" says Flavia Zucco, head of research at the Institute of Neurobiology and Molecular Medicine in Rome and member of EPWS's advisory board. EPWS meetings provide an opportunity to talk with national- and EU-level politicians, and to learn about the situation in other countries. "It is much easier to demand improvements such as flexible work shifts if you can point out that they are already standard in other European countries," Zucco says.The National Contact Centre � Women in Science in Prague, an EPWS member, exemplifies how lobby work can function in practice. The EU-funded centre helps women whose position or work is suffering as a result of purported discrimination. Women can get advice on questions of labour law, and can also access legal and psychological help in more drastic cases of discrimination or sexual harassment.Neurobiologist Gaia Tavosanis received valuable career advice from a mentoring project for women in science.By networking across institutes and national borders, women hope to penetrate and overcome the 'old-boys' networks'; established institutional structures that often make it difficult for them to penetrate the higher ranks. Women need to form their own connections early in their careers, emphasizes Gaia Tavosanis, head of a junior research group at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Munich, Germany. She says that the mentoring women network FemmeNet, run by the Max Planck Minerva Foundation, has helped her to plan her career.A programme called 'ProFil' � run jointly by the Technical University, the Humboldt-University and the Free University of Berlin � goes further, aiming to help women who are preparing for professorships to advance. It offers professional training in skills such as mentoring, university administration, scientific presentation skills and grant writing. And at monthly dinners, ProFil attendees can make contact with politicians, industry representatives and journalists � helpful career-long contacts that could otherwise be difficult to establish.Caren Tischendorf, who was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Cologne in 2006, especially endorses the motivation she gained from the programme. "Knowing that other women are in the same situation as you is very helpful," she says. "It strengthens your confidence that what you are trying to achieve is possible". The programme has been a huge success: of the 42 participants since 2004, 21 have been appointed full professors, and six junior professors. On the basis of this success, the programme was prolonged this year.Progress towards equal opportunities for women has undoubtedly been made in recent decades, and particularly during the past few years. The challenge now is to make sure that initiatives to help women advance in scientific fields become the rule rather than the exception, whether through EU policies, institutional policies, or grassroots online efforts.
Closing the gender gapMagdalena Wutte1
Magdalena Wutte is a former intern in Nature's Munich office. To discuss this article, contact the editorAcross Europe, women in science are typically outnumbered by men at every level. Magdalena Wutte explores how institutions, networking organizations and women themselves can help correct the imbalance.
A. REDPATH/CORBISAccording to the European Union (EU), this year is the 'European Year of Equal Opportunities for All'. This declaration, along with a slew of anti-discrimination legislation, suggests that the EU recognizes there's much to be done in the drive towards equality, as the numbers attest to. In the case of science, women remain under-represented, particularly at higher academic levels. And this disparity cannot simply be attributed to a lack of women pursuing science in the past: bias, it seems, remains.The EU has not been short of initiatives to try to reverse this trend � and progress is being made. Several groups have been established to improve networking among women, but governments and lobby groups can only do so much. Academic institutions � and women themselves � have their part to play in increasing women's participation in the scientific arena."The situation has improved a lot in the past 20 years," says Daniela Corda, director for research and development of the Consorzio Mario Negri Sud, a major research institution in Santa Maria Imbaro, Italy. But, she adds, growing awareness and an absence of open discrimination are not sufficient to substantially increase the number of women in higher academic positions.The most recent figures available suggest that Europe is still dealing with significant attrition by women after they've earned their PhDs (see Moving up or moving out). In 2006, the European Commission (EC) reported that although 40% of PhD students in the natural sciences are female, only 11.3% of the professor, research director and other top positions are occupied by women1. In engineering and technology, 21.9% of PhD students are female, but this total dips to 5.8% at the highest levels of academia1.Furthermore, the average proportion of women on scientific boards is 24% (Norway and Finland, with 48% and 47%, respectively, stand in clear contrast to countries such as Italy and Poland, with 13% and 7%)1. And research funding also suggests a gender gap; in 17 of 26 European countries, men have higher success rates for securing funding1.Top of pageOff-balanceThe EU has been trying to address this imbalance. So far, its greatest success has been within its own organizations. The EC has almost reached its own target, set in 1999, of 40% for women on scientific boards and agencies2. According to Johannes Klumpers, head of unit for 'science culture and gender issues' at the EC's directorate for research, the numbers have increased from around 10% in 1998 to about 34% in 2006.The Max Planck Institute's Mary Osborn recommends institution-wide changes to help recruit and support women scientists.Europe-wide, the EU would like to increase the number of women in higher scientific ranks to 25%3. The EU first started to address the issue in 1999, when it set up an evaluation committee known as the 'Helsinki Group'. The sociologists and natural scientists on the panel, all hailing from EU member countries, drafted reports on the situation in their countries. The group also appointed 'statistical correspondents', based at national universities or private institutes, in order to ensure European statistics were comparable across countries. The reports of the Helsinki Group and their correspondents serve as guidelines for the EU and individual countries.Mary Osborn, who is head of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in G�ttingen, Germany, and has chaired several panels on women in science thinks Europe would benefit from a programme similar to the US National Science Foundation's ADVANCE initiative. This programme provides funds to selected higher-education institutions to support institution-wide changes designed to increase participation and advancement of female scientists and engineers. These range from alteration of recruitment practice (such as actively campaigning for women when advertising jobs) to easing everyday life for scientists with children � for example, by creating day care centres or nurseries integrated into institutions.Top of page
Making contactThe EU's newest development is a central forum for exchange among women scientists across Europe, which had its first general assembly in April. The European Platform of Women Scientists (EPWS) is an umbrella organization for national women's networks and groups lobbying for women in science at EU level."It is a unique exchange forum" says Flavia Zucco, head of research at the Institute of Neurobiology and Molecular Medicine in Rome and member of EPWS's advisory board. EPWS meetings provide an opportunity to talk with national- and EU-level politicians, and to learn about the situation in other countries. "It is much easier to demand improvements such as flexible work shifts if you can point out that they are already standard in other European countries," Zucco says.The National Contact Centre � Women in Science in Prague, an EPWS member, exemplifies how lobby work can function in practice. The EU-funded centre helps women whose position or work is suffering as a result of purported discrimination. Women can get advice on questions of labour law, and can also access legal and psychological help in more drastic cases of discrimination or sexual harassment.Neurobiologist Gaia Tavosanis received valuable career advice from a mentoring project for women in science.By networking across institutes and national borders, women hope to penetrate and overcome the 'old-boys' networks'; established institutional structures that often make it difficult for them to penetrate the higher ranks. Women need to form their own connections early in their careers, emphasizes Gaia Tavosanis, head of a junior research group at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Munich, Germany. She says that the mentoring women network FemmeNet, run by the Max Planck Minerva Foundation, has helped her to plan her career.A programme called 'ProFil' � run jointly by the Technical University, the Humboldt-University and the Free University of Berlin � goes further, aiming to help women who are preparing for professorships to advance. It offers professional training in skills such as mentoring, university administration, scientific presentation skills and grant writing. And at monthly dinners, ProFil attendees can make contact with politicians, industry representatives and journalists � helpful career-long contacts that could otherwise be difficult to establish.Caren Tischendorf, who was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Cologne in 2006, especially endorses the motivation she gained from the programme. "Knowing that other women are in the same situation as you is very helpful," she says. "It strengthens your confidence that what you are trying to achieve is possible". The programme has been a huge success: of the 42 participants since 2004, 21 have been appointed full professors, and six junior professors. On the basis of this success, the programme was prolonged this year.Progress towards equal opportunities for women has undoubtedly been made in recent decades, and particularly during the past few years. The challenge now is to make sure that initiatives to help women advance in scientific fields become the rule rather than the exception, whether through EU policies, institutional policies, or grassroots online efforts.
25 October 2007
FEBS/EMBO Women in Science Award
http://www.embo.org/gender/award.html
Related links
FEBS/EMBO Women in Science Award 2008 - Press release
Nomination submission site Poster
Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) 2008 FEBS Congress in Athens, Greece EMBO/FEBS WISE, Istanbul 2006
EMBO/FEBS WISE, Budapest 2005
The FEBS/EMBO Women in Science Award is a joint initiative of EMBO and the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS). Launched in 2007, the aim of the award is to highlight the major contributions being made by female scientists to life sciences research. Winners of the award will be presented as inspiring role models for future generations of women in science.
Each year the award will reward the exceptional achievements of one woman working in the life sciences in Europe. The winner will be honoured at the annual FEBS Congress, where she will receive an award of EUR 10,000 and present a special plenary lecture. The first award will be made at the 2008 FEBS Congress in Athens, Greece.
Nominees should be women scientists working in Europe who have made outstanding contributions to life sciences research in their career and significantly advanced our understanding of a particular discipline. Their research can cover any area of the life sciences including agricultural and biomedical research.
Deadline for nominations: 15 August 2007 Please red more in the webpage above.
http://www.embo.org/gender/award.html
Related links
FEBS/EMBO Women in Science Award 2008 - Press release
Nomination submission site Poster
Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) 2008 FEBS Congress in Athens, Greece EMBO/FEBS WISE, Istanbul 2006
EMBO/FEBS WISE, Budapest 2005
The FEBS/EMBO Women in Science Award is a joint initiative of EMBO and the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS). Launched in 2007, the aim of the award is to highlight the major contributions being made by female scientists to life sciences research. Winners of the award will be presented as inspiring role models for future generations of women in science.
Each year the award will reward the exceptional achievements of one woman working in the life sciences in Europe. The winner will be honoured at the annual FEBS Congress, where she will receive an award of EUR 10,000 and present a special plenary lecture. The first award will be made at the 2008 FEBS Congress in Athens, Greece.
Nominees should be women scientists working in Europe who have made outstanding contributions to life sciences research in their career and significantly advanced our understanding of a particular discipline. Their research can cover any area of the life sciences including agricultural and biomedical research.
Deadline for nominations: 15 August 2007 Please red more in the webpage above.
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