Being a woman is no obstacle in science if you are determined and have the will to succeed

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 30, 2013 at 8:46am

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Six Steps To Fairer Funding For Female Scientists
Six Steps To Fairer Funding For Female Scientists

By The Conversation | Academia
October 28, 2013

Women who take time off research to have children face funding obstacles when returning to the workforce, writes Kim Jacobson.

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AsianScientist (Oct. 28, 2013) – By Kim Jacobson – A glass ceiling remains in place for female medical research scientists in Australia. Although approximately 50 percent of PhD students and postdoctoral scientists are female, males run the majority of research laboratories.

Despite some reform over the past three decades, there is still an exodus of female scientists from academic research at the transitional stage between a postdoctoral researcher and laboratory head.

A major factor in this imbalance is the funding system. Although the intention of the current system is for all scientists to be treated equally, some are still being treated more equally than others.

Females who take time from their careers to give birth to and raise children do not lose their scientific abilities. To continually lose women after years of training is a waste of talent and the investment the government makes in young female scientists.

Currently, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) funding panels are required to judge the quality of an applicant “relative to opportunity,” including factoring in career disruption statements.

In these statements, applicants can detail issues that have affected their time as an “active researcher,” such as pregnancies, major illnesses and or parental leave.

The bare minimum guideline is to extend the five-year review period of publication history according to the length of leave. This includes the full-time equivalent calculations for those who return to work part-time.

This simplistic calculation excludes a number of factors that disadvantage females who take leave. It will be essential to modify the current funding structure in order to retain more women during this fragile stage of their career.

Here are six changes to the existing funding structure that will help retain women who have had career disruptions.

Change annual funding deadlines. Females who are on maternity leave during funding deadlines face a tough choice: write funding applications with a newborn, or potentially be without a salary the following year.

Unfortunately, NHMRC career development fellowship and project grant deadlines are usually only a couple of weeks apart, once a year. Thus, females that are on maternity leave during “grant season” will miss out on not one, but two major funding opportunities. So although someone may take three months leave, they will have lost the chance to apply for funding for a year.

Other countries, such as the United States, are capable of administering multiple deadlines per year, thus it is not improbable for the Australian system to do likewise. At minimum, the NHMRC could separate fellowship and grant application deadlines to different times of the year.

Maternity leave support for project grants. Fellowships allow a maximum three-month paid extension for maternity leave. Project grants, a main source of salary support, do not.

A researcher who is the lead investigator on a grant can, however, defer their grant during maternity leave. This is an important condition for those Chief Investigators who are also the main drivers of the research. Allowing maternity leave extensions for salary would be an important addition to assist females in maintaining their careers during periods of leave.

Increasing grants from three to five-year periods. The majority of grants currently have a short life cycle of three years. This pressures researchers to build their track record in a short amount of time, thus exacerbating the effect career disruptions have on funding for women.

The Coalition Government has stated that they will adopt the McKeon Review’s recommendations of increasing grants to five-year periods. This is desperately needed not only for females, but also for the stability of all research projects.

Increasing fellowships for senior postdocs. Funding opportunities for senior postdocs are extremely limited, and undertaking a second postdoc is becoming increasingly common in Australia.

Competition for limited funding and lab head opportunities see some scientists temporarily forced into these positions. Others enjoy leading projects but do not necessarily want to run labs.

Finally, as the transition period from postdoc to independent researcher overlaps with childbearing years, a senior postdoc position can be a temporary alternative to lab head while juggling young babies and work. Yet, most “early career” fellowship applications have a time limit of two to five years, post-PhD. This generally would only cover a first postdoc.

A 2011 column in Nature noted the waste of talented postdocs occurring due to limited funding and lab head opportunities. As a result, they called for the professionalization of the senior postdoc position.

The problem for Australian researchers is the clear disconnect between how labs are structured and how funding is decided. Project grant budget discussions for requested salaries center on the level of experience required to perform the research under the guidance of the lead investigator.

These discussions often result in the reduction of the requested salary from a postdoc to research assistant. Thus, postdocs who have postponed applying for lab head positions due to career disruptions are left with few funding opportunities.

One solution recommended by the McKeon Review is to create fellowships that retain senior female researchers. Another solution would be for universities and research institutes to provide funding that covers the gap between a research assistant and postdoc salary.

A clearer method of judging career disruptions for all components of a track record. An applicant’s track record “relative to opportunity” is a major component of both grant applications and the fellowship schemes that foster the transition from postdoc to independence.

Besides the publication history for NHMRC grants, there is no clear guideline for how to incorporate career disruptions into judging track record. Yet, a wide-ranging set of criteria is assessed in addition to publications.

This can include previous funding success, training of students, conference attendance, and in some instances, communication of science to the public. All of these can, and are, affected by career disruptions.

For example, a short leave period may overlap with yearly opportunities, such as a conference, or the beginning of a research student’s project, making it impractical to supervise a student that year.

Mothers who are still breastfeeding may forgo conferences, thus limiting their ability to establish their reputation in the field, another attribute assessed by the NHMRC. Providing funding for female researchers attending conferences to either pay for a career at home or take the children with them, another McKeon Review recommendation, is vital.

Lastly, pregnancies and frequently sick infants can decrease the number of hours available for active research. Clearer guidelines on how to judge researchers with career disruptions, who have not had the same opportunities as other researchers, is needed.

Quality over quantity. Lastly, in recent years the NHMRC has shifted away from using journal metrics as a measure of quality of a publication. Unfortunately, without a good measure of impact, quantity of publications is often preferred as the main measure of track record.

Quantity over quality enforces a bias against females who continue to have reduced hours as an active researcher upon their return to work. Recently, NHMRC CEO Warwick Anderson stated that researchers would be able to detail the impact of five of their publications in the track record statement.

This is an important first step in tackling an issue that disadvantages women who have had career disruptions.

Stability for scientists

The NHMRC convened a “Women in Health Science” committee in 2012, aimed at addressing issues that affect retaining women. More than just incremental changes to the funding system are required to level the playing field.

And while this article focuses on disadvantages female scientists face, these improvements will improve stability for all scientists; something the future of research in Australia badly needs.

Kim Jacobson is a senior postdoctoral fellow in Immunology at Walter and Eliza Hall Institute.

——

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article; Photo: Cia de Foto/CC.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.

Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 30, 2013 at 8:55am

http://www.elsevier.com/connect/study-reports-indias-slow-progress-...*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_nav*4responsive*4tab*4profile_*1#!
Study reports India’s slow progress in advancing women in science and technology
The number of women in engineering, physics and computer science – and other areas of knowledge and innovation – is on the the decline
By Sophia Huyer, PhD, and Nancy Halfkin, PhD |
A 2012 report on Gender Equality in the Knowledge Society found the number of women in the science, technology and innovation fields "alarmingly low" in the world's leading economies, including the US.

Women have long been fighting to be recognized in the same light as men. Although the past few decades have seen fundamental growth in gender equality, the reality is that equal opportunity is still a challenge for women in certain disciplines in various countries.

India, for one, is making slow progress in regard to advancing women in science. This is evident in country reports conducted last year.

In a series of gender benchmarking studies, the opportunities and obstacles faced by women in science in emerging countries were examined. Key findings were summarized in country reports. Besides India, country reports for the US, European Union, South Africa, South Korea, Indonesia and Brazil were also conducted; Brazil's findings were shared in an Elsevier Connect article last year.

The seven reports were conducted by experts in international gender, science and technology issues from Women in Global Science and Technology (WISAT) and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) and funded by the Elsevier Foundation.

India ranks the lowest overall of the countries in this study, with low rankings in female participation in the labor force, access to resources, participation in the knowledge economy, and health status. Less than 15% of women have access to their own bank account, and females hold less than a third of available administrative and managerial positions.

Gender-disaggregated data is collected in fewer of the indicator categories than any other country except Indonesia, and not consistently collected.
Health status

India ranks fifth in health, due primarily to lower life expectancies and comparatively high rates of child and maternal mortality. Access to health care has increased as a result of targeted government efforts and the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) to bring health care to remote areas, although more needs to be done. Overall, rates of infectious disease such as malaria are declining, and the number of people living with HIV/AIDS is dropping.
Social status

Last in social status for girls and women, India has a male-female ratio at birth of 112 in favor of males, compared to the global average of 106. This trend is the result of sex-selective abortion practiced in the country. Autonomy in decision making is still based strongly in cultural systems, to the disadvantage of females. In the age group of 15 to 19, 46% of females are not involved in any kind of decision-making relating to household purchases, health care or visits to friends and relatives.

As of 2010, overall crimes against women are on the rise, with increases particularly in rape, kidnapping and molestation, and decreases in prostitution traffic and indecent representation of women. Women work longer hours than men: while men work longer at paid work, they spend about 3.6 hours in household- and care-related activities compared to 34.6 hours for women.
Economic status

Women's participation in the formal labor force is much lower than men's, at 29% compared to more than 80%. Agricultural labor force participation remains high, with substantially (nearly 20%) more women than men working in this sector (65% to 46%). The percentage of women working in agriculture is among the world's highest, although figures for both men and women are falling, reflecting global trends.

Gender benchmarking chart, India (Source: Scorecard on Gender Equality in the Knowledge Society)Gender benchmarking chart, India (Source: Scorecard on Gender Equality in the Knowledge Society)
Nevertheless, at 65%, self-employment and informal employment remain major sources of income for women. All of these trends likely contribute to the low ratio of female to male wages, with women earning 31% of the wages paid to men for equivalent work in 2010.
Access to resources

Indian legislation supports women's financial independence to a moderate degree. Several laws guarantee women's access to land and property other than land, but these laws are often ignored, as are those pertaining to women's access to bank loans. For example, although women have equal rights to independent bank accounts, only 15% exercise this right.

As of June 2011, overall telephone coverage was at 73.97% and mobile coverage at 71.11%. While there is no systematic collection of sex-disaggregated data on computer or cell phone use, some data indicate 11% of working women, 6% of non-working women and 2% of housewives use the Internet, indicating the socioeconomic factors which influence women's access to ICT.

Electricity for domestic use in 2008-09 increased to 75% from 64% in 2002. However, geographical coverage breaks down to 96% in urban areas and 66% in rural. The total electrification rate was 64.5%, urban 93.1% and rural 52.5%. There are no sex-disaggregated data available, but according to the UN, in 2010 the proportion of households using solid fuels for cooking was 31% in urban areas and 90% in rural areas – indicating the need for concerted efforts to improve access to clean and affordable energy for household use.
Women in office

Female representation in Parliament and ministerial positions stands at 10% or lower in the past 10 years. However, at the village (panchayat) level, women make up 36% to 37% of the three tiers of Panchayati Raj, providing leadership and serving as role models for both young and older women in the rural areas.

Women in India show a fairly high rate of contraceptive use, with 46.5% of couples using some form of contraceptive in 2007-08 — a slight increase from 44.1 in 1990-91.
Education and literacy

The literacy rate improved by 65% in 2001 to 74% in 2011, with female literacy improving from 45% to 51% – from 224 million to 334 million – still a very high rate of illiteracy. Educational enrollments for girls and females have increased dramatically, particularly at the primary level, where India has recently achieved gender parity and universal enrollment. Gross enrollment ratios for females and males drop to 60% and 66% respectively at the secondary level (2010), and to 15% and 21% at the tertiary level. Quality of education is not consistent across the country.
Supportive government policy

With the principle of gender equality enshrined in the Indian Constitution, India has signed and implemented a number of national and international conventions and laws relating to the rights of women, including the UN Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Lead National Researcher

Sophia Nair, PhDSophia Nair, PhD
The lead researcher for the study in India was Dr. Sudha Nair of the Gender Advisory Board of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development."The study was timely and unique," she said. "The report will help policy makers to design better programs, to be more inclusive in their development approaches, and address the need to get gender-disaggregated data."

In 1992, a National Commission for Women was established, and in 2001, the National Policy for the Empowerment of Women was established. The National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW) was launched by the government of India on International Women's Day in 2010 with the aim to strengthen overall processes that promote all-around development of women. It has the mandate to strengthen inter-sectoral cooperation and facilitate coordination of all women's programs across ministries and departments.
Women in knowledge-society decision-making

India has a low representation of women in knowledge-society decision-making; they make up 22% of legislators, senior officials and managers, with almost no change over the last five years. The low participation of females in these positions reflects the low participation of women in higher education.

Participation on corporate boards is abysmally low at 4%. Government data indicates that only 26% of listed companies in India (392 of 1,500 firms) have appointed a woman to their board. This rate of representation is echoed in the national science academy, with a slight increase of 2.8% in 2000 to 5% in 2010.
Women in the knowledge economy

Despite its low ranking in knowledge society decision-making and the low rate of females in higher education, India shows a relatively high representation of females in administrative and managerial positions at 28%. Additionally, 28% of the IT workforce is female — again a high ratio compared to other sectors in the country and to other countries.
Women in S&T innovation systems

India ranks highly in female representation in science and engineering enrollments, at around 65%, with numbers increasing to 80.4% in the biological, medical and life sciences (including nursing and ayurvedic professions). While female representation in engineering and physics dropped to 32% to 35.8% in 2005-07, this is still the highest rate of the countries studied.

However, representation dropped to 12.7% of the science and engineering workforce overall. The representation of females in the S&E workforce corresponds to the number of female researchers in all disciplines: 12.5% (2005). The participation of women in the formal entrepreneurship sector in the country is very low: less than 10%. This figure fails to take into account the vast numbers of women engaged in small and micro enterprise and livelihoods activity, a sector that comprises a major portion of female employment (65%) in Asia overall.
Conclusion

While India's enabling policy environment, which has been in place for many years, is very positive, implementation and funding needs to increase substantially before women can equally benefit from the innovation advantage.

At the same time, there are definite signs of progress. For example, India has achieved universal primary education enrollment. An obvious strategy to begin to close the gap is to ensure that women in in India are given the necessary support to improve their health gain access to resources and opportunities, and develop capacity to contribute to India's knowledge.

Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 30, 2013 at 8:57am

http://awisblog.wordpress.com/2013/10/29/what-works-for-women-at-wo...*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_nav*4r
What Works for Women at Work: Part 4 – Tug of War
Julie has always looked upon Madeline as something of a mentor, but when Julie comes up for a promotion to a position at Madeline’s level, she’s shocked to find out that the strongest opposition came from her.”
Source: www.newgirls.net

What Works for Women at Work – this four part series of the AWIS blog will describe four patterns of gender bias in the workplace and how to recognize and move past them. The content comes from Joan Williams, JD, who presented a sold-out webinar to AWIS members last month. If you missed the first three parts of the series, click here.

This part of the series deals with the “The Tug of War,” when gender bias against women, turns into fights among women at work. While some fighting can be simply attributed to personality differences, much of it can be attributed to gender bias. Here are four types of women vs. women fighting that suggest gender bias in the workplace:

Tokenism: This occurs when there are few opportunities for women to get promotions, recognition, or increased job responsibilities. Women then turn on each other to eliminate the competition.

Old vs. Young: Examples of this are when older women are resentful of younger women, who they feel have all the advantages without paying their dues and they will disparage them at every opportunity. Conversely, young women don’t appreciate or respect the institutional and job knowledge of the older women and disparage them at every opportunity.

Femmes vs. Tomboys: This occurs between women who have adopted male mannerisms in order to compete with women who exhibit more typically feminine characteristics.

Mommy Wars: The resentment between women who chose to have children and those who chose not to.

What are some strategies to combat this infighting among women? First, ask yourself if you are guilty of any of the above scenarios and acknowledge your behavior and try to change. Sometimes we get so caught up in the prize, that we don’t realize what it may be costing us as we try to achieve it.

Second, know that there is no wrong way to be a woman. We are all individuals, with different wants, needs and desires. We need to respect each other’s choices. Don’t focus on the differences between you and the other women at your workplace, focus on what you have in common.

Know the limits of sisterhood. Girl power and support of one another will only go so far. Recognize that. Bear in mind, that men do not always support men simply because of their gender, it’s simply not realistic to expect it from all women.

Turn an enemy into an ally. If a woman is targeting you at work, talk to her. “Perhaps I have done anything to offend you….” Sometimes, behaviors can be misinterpreted and a five minute conversation can turn a relationship around.

For senior women, remember that a younger women’s experience is different from yours. They come into the workplace with a different view of the world. Appreciate your differences; you have a lot to learn from each other.

For younger women, respect and listen to the input you get from senior women, but don’t let their criticism paralyze your ability to perform.

Find strength in numbers. You can form a women’s group at your workplace that doesn’t deal necessarily with women’s issues, but focuses on camaraderie and team building.

Additional tips:

If you are struggling at work, ask yourself this question – “Is it me, or is it bias?”

Consider hiring a career coach. A coach can help you come up with strategies and coping mechanisms.

Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 30, 2013 at 9:01am

Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 30, 2013 at 9:08am

Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 30, 2013 at 9:08am

561

Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 9, 2013 at 7:33am

http://www.siliconindia.com/news/general/India-Among-Nations-Where-...
3. India:

Over the last few decades, the status of women in India has been subjected to many great changes. Today, women in India held many high offices in the country like the President, Prime Minister, Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Chief Ministers and Leader of the Opposition. Women in India work for over one-and-a-half hours more than the country’s men every day, making this difference in total work hours the maximum in nearly 30 countries, according to OECD’s report. The gender gap is widest in India, where women spend on average 94 minutes more time than the men on total work each day.

Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 10, 2013 at 6:43am

http://www.inspiringthefuture.org/
Inspiring Women in Science, Engineering and Tech

Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 20, 2013 at 5:50am

That large problem aside, many of her points are important and valid, and you should still know about them. For instance, she writes: "I was dismayed to find that the cultural and psychological factors that I experienced in the '70s not only persist but also seem all the more pernicious in a society in which women are told that nothing is preventing them from succeeding in any field. If anything, the pressures to be conventionally feminine seem even more intense now than when I was young." This is a problem that this series has highlighted: that there are still huge barriers to people of any minority status succeeding in the field — but they're hidden, invisible, tucked away in professors' and peers' preconceptions and latent biases. We're told there's nothing holding us back, so if we don't succeed it's our own damn fault. And this, I believe, leads to the exact problem she described earlier: just as women are told there should be nothing standing in their way to success, the general silence around queer struggles leads the casual observer to believe that there is nothing standing in the way of their success.
http://www.autostraddle.com/queered-science-sexism-is-for-everybody...!

Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 24, 2013 at 6:23am

http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.in/2013/11/women-who-changed-moder...!
Women Who Changed Modern American Science

Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 10, 2013 at 7:08am

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25243274
State schools 'making gender bias worse'

Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 10, 2013 at 9:53am

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/women-scientists-less-lik...
Women scientists less likely to receive funding, study finds
British women scientists researching cures to the world’s most deadly diseases are less likely to receive funding than their male counterparts, and also receive significantly smaller sums, a study has found.
In a finding that poses uncomfortable questions for the UK scientific establishment, researchers uncovered evidence of women scientists working in the field of infectious diseases being disadvantaged in crucial funding allocations for more than a decade. Out of more than 6,000 funding grants between 1997 and 2010, less than a quarter were awarded to studies led by women. Male scientists received nearly £1.8bn of funding in the time period, compared to just £488m for women.

Studies led by women were also more likely to receive lower sums of money. The average grant for a woman-led study was £125,556 – compared to an average award of £179,389 for research proposed by men – a difference of 43 per cent . The authors of the study, published in the online journal BMJ Open today, said their findings could not be taken as evidence of gender bias on the part of funding councils, but urged funder to “urgently investigate” the reasons behind the differences.

Women have long been under-represented at the senior level of scientific research. While women comprise 50 per cent of the EU student population, and 45 per cent of doctoral students, only one-third of career researchers are women. Winning a grant for academic research from government, private or philanthropic bodies is a crucial step in a scientist’s career development – one at which too many women were being denied the chance to progress, campaigners and scientists said.

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