Gender and language use in scientific grant writing
Women in science, technology, engineering, and math are not equally represented across tenure-track career stages, and this extends to grant funding, where women applicants often have lower success rates compared with men. While gender bias in reviewers has been documented, it is currently unknown w...
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Online Access: | https://www.facetsjournal.com/doi/10.1139/facets-2018-0039 |
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doaj-c1cfa8aa5c9d468f8f9e2e4311971e422020-11-25T01:27:12ZengCanadian Science PublishingFACETS2371-16712371-16712019-09-014144245810.1139/facets-2018-0039Gender and language use in scientific grant writingMackenzie Urquhart-Cronish0Sarah P. Otto1Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada; Department of Botany, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, CanadaBiodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada; Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, CanadaWomen in science, technology, engineering, and math are not equally represented across tenure-track career stages, and this extends to grant funding, where women applicants often have lower success rates compared with men. While gender bias in reviewers has been documented, it is currently unknown whether written language in grant applications varies predictably with gender to elicit bias against women. Here we analyse the text of ∼2000 public research summaries from the 2016 Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) individual Discovery Grant (DG) program. We explore the relationship between language variables, inferred gender and career stage, and funding levels. We also analyse aggregated data from the 2012–2018 NSERC DG competitions to determine whether gender impacted the probability of receiving a grant for early-career researchers. We document a marginally significant gender difference in funding levels for successful grants, with women receiving $1756 less than men, and a large and significant difference in rejection rates among early-career applicants (women: 40.4% rejection; men: 33.0% rejection rate). Language variables had little ability to predict gender or funding level using predictive modelling. Our results indicate that NSERC funding levels and success rates differ between men and women, but we find no evidence that gendered language use affected funding outcomes.https://www.facetsjournal.com/doi/10.1139/facets-2018-0039languagegendercareer stagefundingbiasNSERC |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Mackenzie Urquhart-Cronish Sarah P. Otto |
spellingShingle |
Mackenzie Urquhart-Cronish Sarah P. Otto Gender and language use in scientific grant writing FACETS language gender career stage funding bias NSERC |
author_facet |
Mackenzie Urquhart-Cronish Sarah P. Otto |
author_sort |
Mackenzie Urquhart-Cronish |
title |
Gender and language use in scientific grant writing |
title_short |
Gender and language use in scientific grant writing |
title_full |
Gender and language use in scientific grant writing |
title_fullStr |
Gender and language use in scientific grant writing |
title_full_unstemmed |
Gender and language use in scientific grant writing |
title_sort |
gender and language use in scientific grant writing |
publisher |
Canadian Science Publishing |
series |
FACETS |
issn |
2371-1671 2371-1671 |
publishDate |
2019-09-01 |
description |
Women in science, technology, engineering, and math are not equally represented across tenure-track career stages, and this extends to grant funding, where women applicants often have lower success rates compared with men. While gender bias in reviewers has been documented, it is currently unknown whether written language in grant applications varies predictably with gender to elicit bias against women. Here we analyse the text of ∼2000 public research summaries from the 2016 Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) individual Discovery Grant (DG) program. We explore the relationship between language variables, inferred gender and career stage, and funding levels. We also analyse aggregated data from the 2012–2018 NSERC DG competitions to determine whether gender impacted the probability of receiving a grant for early-career researchers. We document a marginally significant gender difference in funding levels for successful grants, with women receiving $1756 less than men, and a large and significant difference in rejection rates among early-career applicants (women: 40.4% rejection; men: 33.0% rejection rate). Language variables had little ability to predict gender or funding level using predictive modelling. Our results indicate that NSERC funding levels and success rates differ between men and women, but we find no evidence that gendered language use affected funding outcomes. |
topic |
language gender career stage funding bias NSERC |
url |
https://www.facetsjournal.com/doi/10.1139/facets-2018-0039 |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT mackenzieurquhartcronish genderandlanguageuseinscientificgrantwriting AT sarahpotto genderandlanguageuseinscientificgrantwriting |
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