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Science policies in the European Union
Only a small number of Marie Curie fellowships have been awarded in the
Fifth Framework programme so far.   However, the female success rate has
increased to 92% of that of males when all disciplines are combined.   The
female success rate was lower in environment, life sciences and physics, the
discrepancy being greatest in physics where women only achieved 67% of
the male success rate.  However, women outperformed men in four other
disciplines: chemistry, economics, engineering and mathematics.  The
differences were greatest in engineering and in economics where males
achieved 80% and 84% respectively of the female success rate.  The question
remains as to whether these differences will remain constant as more
fellowships are awarded.
Research grants in the EU and in Member States
analysed by gender
Success in science depends not only on having ideas but also on having the
resources to test them.  Scientists with larger groups have a competitive
advantage over those who have smaller groups.  The size of the group is
usually related to the number and size of the research grants that can be
obtained from national and international sources.  It is therefore reasonable
to pose three questions relating to gender in this context.  First, do women
make as many applications as men?  Secondly, what share do women obtain
of grants from national and international sources?  Thirdly, do women and
men at comparable levels get grants of the same size?
In the US, there was a survey of the resources allocated to tenured
researchers in a division at the National Cancer Institute.  Female
researchers on average received less than two thirds of the budget and a
mere 63% of the research staff given to male researchers of equal seniority
(Abbot, 1997; Seachrist, 1994).
Gender disaggregated data on application rates for grants from research
councils in the EU are hard to come by.  Figures for Denmark, French-
speaking Belgium and Finland however are set out in Appendix VII.  Even
then they are hard to interpret without knowing the size of the pool from
which the applicants come.  Do women apply less than men or are there
simply fewer of them? Appendix VII shows that in Denmark, women are
much less likely to make applications than men but that there are discipline
differences.  Figures are higher among medical researchers (where 28% of
applications come from women) and social scientists (27%) than among
natural scientists (12%) and those applying to research technical subjects
(7%).  The Finnish data shows the higher up the academic hierarchy, the
fewer applications come from women.  Women make up 44% of
applications from post-doc researchers but only 14% from academy
professors.
Several studies show that women get a far smaller share of the total
resources devoted to research than should be expected from their numbers.
For example, only 20% of grants from the British Medical Research
Council (MRC) as well as from the Wellcome Trust are given to female
researchers.  This is despite the fact that they constitute 44% of the academic
staff in the biomedical field in the UK (Grant, Burden and Breen, 1997).
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In Denmark, in 1996, applications to the research councils and other
programmes supporting research were analysed by gender.  The overall
success rate for women was 36% and for men 49%.  This means that the
female success rate for applications was only 73% of the male success rate.
Again there are great differences between the research councils.  Only in 3
out of the 13 organisations did women have a higher success rater than men
(Vestergaard and Taarnby, 1998).
In Germany, applications to the major funding agency for the universities,
the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft  (DFG), were analysed by gender in
1988, and thereafter. Comparison of results for the individual grant
programme showed that in 1988 and again in 1993, women were being
funded in proportion to the rate at which they applied. That is, the
percentage of women among grantees mirrored that among the applicants.
The data shown in Figure 4.2 compares the percentage of grants given to
women in the years 1988, 1993 and 1997 in the individual grants
programme.  For biology and medicine as well as for natural sciences the
percentage of grants going to women has increased from 12% to 14.6% and
from 2.5% to 4.9% respectively between 1988 and 1997. In social sciences
during the same period, the percentage of grants going to women increased
from 11% to 18.2%.  If all programmes of the DFG are taken into account
women receive only 10% of the grants that are awarded. The DFG has no
information as to whether men and women at comparable career levels are
equally likely to apply for research grants, nor has it analysed whether they
receive similarly sized grants.
Figure 4.2: Individual grants awarded to women by the DFG in Germany:
By year and discipline
Source: Data from DFG
Wellcome Trust Audit
Following the Swedish MRC study, the Wellcome Trust, an independent
charity that is the largest non-government source of funding for biomedical
research in the UK, audited its decision-making processes on awarding
grants.  The results were published in a publication entitled Women and Peer
Review (Wellcome Trust Unit for Policy Research in Science and Medicine,
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6
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0
Humanities and
Social Sciences
Biology and Medicine
Natural Sciences
Engineering
1988
1993
1998
%
Fairness and funding/modernising peer review
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