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Female grant applicants are equally successful when peer reviewers assess the science, but not when they assess the scientist

View ORCID ProfileHolly O. Witteman, View ORCID ProfileMichael Hendricks, Sharon Straus, Cara Tannenbaum
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/232868
Holly O. Witteman
1Associate Professor, Department of Family and Emergency Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, 1050 avenue de la Médecine, Université Laval, Quebec City, Canada, G1V 0A6
PhD
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  • ORCID record for Holly O. Witteman
Michael Hendricks
2Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, 1205 av du Docteur-Penfield, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, H3A 1B1
PhD
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Sharon Straus
3Professor, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital, 30 Bond Street, Toronto, Canada, M3B 2T9
MD FRCPC MSc HBSc
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Cara Tannenbaum
4Scientific Director, Institute for Gender and Health, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Ottawa, Canada, H3A 1W4
MD MSc
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ABSTRACT

Background Previous research shows that men often receive more research funding than women, but does not provide empirical evidence as to why this occurs. In 2014, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) created a natural experiment by dividing all investigator-initiated funding into two new grant programs: one with and one without an explicit review focus on the caliber of the principal investigator.

Methods We analyzed application success among 23,918 grant applications from 7,093 unique principal investigators in a 5-year natural experiment across all investigator-initiated CIHR grant programs in 2011-2016. We used Generalized Estimating Equations to account for multiple applications by the same applicant and an interaction term between each principal investigator’s self-reported sex and grant programs to compare success rates between male and female applicants under different review criteria.

Results The overall grant success rate across all competitions was 15.8%. After adjusting for age and research domain, the predicted probability of funding success in traditional programs was 0.9 percentage points higher for male than for female principal investigators (OR 0.934, 95% CI 0.854-1.022). In the new program focused on the proposed science, the gap was 0.9 percentage points in favour of male principal investigators (OR 0.998, 95% CI 0.794-1.229). In the new program with an explicit review focus on the caliber of the principal investigator, the gap was 4.0 percentage points in favour of male principal investigators (OR 0.705, 95% CI 0.519- 0.960).

Interpretation This study suggests gender gaps in grant funding are attributable to less favourable assessments of women as principal investigators, not differences in assessments of the quality of science led by women. We propose ways for funders to avoid allowing gender bias to influence research funding.

Funding This study was unfunded.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
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Posted March 02, 2018.
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Female grant applicants are equally successful when peer reviewers assess the science, but not when they assess the scientist
Holly O. Witteman, Michael Hendricks, Sharon Straus, Cara Tannenbaum
bioRxiv 232868; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/232868
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Female grant applicants are equally successful when peer reviewers assess the science, but not when they assess the scientist
Holly O. Witteman, Michael Hendricks, Sharon Straus, Cara Tannenbaum
bioRxiv 232868; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/232868

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