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Grant funding is essential to the advancement of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields with certain grants viewed as especially prestigious and career formative. The goal of this project was twofold: first to describe the gender demographics of the national winners of two prestigious grants and second, to document the impact of an educational program aimed at improving the success for women in STEM fields in a local setting. In Study 1, we analyzed publicly available national data to document gender gaps in National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) and National Institutes of Health’s K01 awards from 2008-2021. Results showed that, while the ratio of K01 awards favored women, the ratio of men-to-women CAREER awardees favored men. In Study 2, we implemented a grant-writing program for CAREER awards based in self-determination theory at one university and analyzed its impact on funding success. Results comparing before the educational program and after showed that the average annual success rate increased for everyone from 11% to 33%. Women-identified faculty who participated in the program were awarded CAREER funding at a higher rate than would be expected from the number of women eligible to apply or submission rates. While the correlational and observational nature of this study make it impossible to conclude that it was only the educational programs that resulted in the benefits to women’s award success, we encourage other universities to consider adapting the program and enable faculty development around grant success.
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Women Leadership in the AGU Chapman Conference Series: Convener Impacts on the Science Program Committee
Abstract Science conferences have increasingly come under a spotlight for inclusion and representation of marginalized groups. Here, we report on our analysis of the representation of women in conference leadership with regard to internal structure and dynamics at the Chapman conference series, spanning a period from 2007 to 2019. Chapman conferences are small, focused meetings in the Earth and space sciences, under the umbrella of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). They follow a two‐leveled scientific leadership model, starting at conference inception by the organizing conveners and their selection of an invited science program committee. Our main findings were: (a) The average women proportion was less for the conveners (17%) than for the Science Program Committee (SPC) (24%), which is in line with the AGU demographics of attrition, assuming a different mix of career stages among conveners and SPC. At the individual conference level, the unfavorable case that convener or SPC teams were comprised only of men was nonetheless frequent. (b) On average, mixed convener teams, as opposed to all‐men convener teams, selected a higher women representation among the SPC members (18% vs. 28%). (c) There were fewer all‐men SPC teams when at least one woman was in the convener team (21% vs. 7%). In conclusion, while there was evidence that equitable representation can be achieved in the leadership, it still lagged in a consistent fashion for individual conferences. Targeted efforts for increased representation–especially at the convener level of the two‐leveled conference model–are recommended, as increased women representation at the convener level may improve women representation of the SPC.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2016788
- PAR ID:
- 10459305
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.1029
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Earth and Space Science
- Volume:
- 10
- Issue:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 2333-5084
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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