Women make up 44% of Australian academics, but just 24% of professors. One of the contributing factors for this disparity is that there are fewer women applying for research grants than men, even though women are just as successful at winning grants as men.
Given that research grant success is a key promotion criterion at most institutes, this hampers the ability of women to reach senior positions. So if we can encourage more women to apply for grants, then this could help increase the number of women professors.
This week saw the Australian Research Council (ARC) announce its Gender Equality Action Plan. This includes a range of actions aimed to ensure equal opportunity for men and women to participate in its National Competitive Grants Programme.
The ARC has already included maternity and paternity leave for all grants, and part-time options for early and mid career researchers with children or other carer responsibilities. It has also extended the eligibility criteria of some grants to account for time out of research for maternity leave and carer responsibilities.
Previously, the ARC would rate research output relative to the number of years since PhD completion, which would disadvantage women who had taken time out to start a family. Now research performance is based on the opportunity the researcher has had to do research.
The ARC has also introduced two prestigious Australian Laureate Fellowships specifically targeted for outstanding women.
The ARC Gender Equality Action Plan collects all these initiatives into a single document, along with new initiatives such as improving the gender balance of ARC selection committee members, raising awareness of parental leave entitlements and part-time options, and monitoring the impact of recent changes to eligibility and leave provisions.
ARC Centres of Excellence will also be required to develop and implement an equity plan.
It will also consider unconscious bias training for grant assessors and the ARC College of Experts, who are the people who ultimately decide who gets funded and who does not.
Why change is needed
These initiatives are long overdue and whole-heartedly supported by the academic community.
While there is still debate over whether parenthood decreases productivity among academics, various studies show that the rate of research output drops for women returning from maternity leave and their research output is affected until their children are teenagers.
This effect is also far greater for mothers than fathers. A recent study of 10,000 economists found the research productivity of mothers dropped by 17% compared to 5% for fathers.