Request to the ARC from the AAP
Context statement
The ability to attract external research funding is one key determinant of progression in an
academic career. Funding is taken as an indicator of success and reputation, and contributes
to promotion, awards and appointments. In the field of philosophy, there are welldocumented issues of gender imbalance at all levels of employment, but particularly
pronounced at senior levels, see figure 1 below.
Figure 1: FTE for Fulltime and Fractional Fulltime Philosophy Teaching and Research staff in
Australian universities by level and gender
50.0
45.0
D&E Males
40.0
Number
35.0
30.0
C Males
25.0
B Males
20.0
B Females
15.0
10.0
C Females
A Males
D&E Females
A Females
5.0
0.0
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Year
Data Source: AAP Benchmarking Collection
The AAP therefore wishes to find out more about how gender differentials in the ability to
win grants, different success rates or rates of application that become more attenuated at key
phases of the career structure (notably mid-career), may be impacting women’s advancement
in philosophy. We would also like to know more about how Philosophy compares with other
disciplines, particularly Political Science (which has a similar gender profile to philosophy);
History (which has a better gender profile); Mathematics (which has a worse gender profile).
Research funding represents a significant career investment that seems to be going
predominantly to men in the field, with long-term consequences that are likely to re-inforce
rather than challenge existing gender bias. What are the key factors here? Career disruption
due to maternity is often taken to be at the heart of the underrepresentation of women since it
seriously impacts the ability of women who have one or more career breaks to attract
research funding. Women who feel themselves to have a poor track record are also less likely
to apply for competitive funding. In order to further evaluate what ‘success rates’ can tell us,
we need to consider rates of application to external funding schemes, as well as eligibility. It
is unclear that ‘track-record relative to opportunity’ is currently evaluated at a level that
sufficiently off-sets the constraints women face. Moreover, other factors are also likely to be
in play; for instance, the research literature presents compelling evidence of implicit bias in
the differential assessment of written work and CV’s of men and women.
We would like to obtain ARC data to assist in further analysis of the following perceived
problems, ideally across the range of disciplines detailed above, and with a view to whether
there is significant change over time:
1. Application rates: Women are not submitting as many ARC applications as men.
2. Success rates: Although success rates have been comparable in some years, in others
it has been lower for women. It seems to be very variable with career stage.
3. Assessment of track-record: How well is this operating? The largest drop off in
women obtaining grants seems to occur in mid-career. It tends to coincide with
maternity, and the years immediately following. The current FTE calculations do not
take into account that during pregnancy and after returning to work from maternity
leave, women have a reduced capacity for an extended period of time. The problem is
not just about the time that women took as leave but also the long term gendered
patterns of care and the opportunities missed during that leave that only come once a
year.
4. Assessment of Quality: Given evidence of implicit bias at work in the differential
assessment of work and CV’s, do we have ways of assessing fairly the quality and
potential of all male and female applicants? Do we have data on proxys for output and
potential eg number of HERDC points and how these compare for male and female
successful applicants?
5. $ Value of grants going to males as compared to females
In more detail, we would like data on:
1. Eligibility, ‘Application rate’ and ‘Success rate’
What proportion of academic women registered with the ARC in each year of their employment (i.e.
they consider applying for funding)? What is the gender ratio of staff eligible to apply for funding
(i.e. academic women in particular disciplines) and those who actually apply? - Then one could
compare these ratios to the gender ratio for applicants and then the corresponding ratio for
successful applicants.
We would like to know:
1. Success rates for women (compared to men)
a. % who register with the ARC (hence are eligible to apply)
b. Gender ratios of application to eligibility
c. Gender ratios of success to application
d. (a-c) by types of positions (0.4-1.0, contract/continuing, RO/T&R)
e. (a-c) by levels of appointment (A-E)
f. Gender ratios for Lead CI (by application, and by success)
2. Success/Application rates, and how these differ at career stage
Key question: Are ECR women doing relatively better than older women?
This is an important question for evaluating change, and where the problems for women may be
arising. We would need longitudinal data to be able to tell whether ECR women do better regardless
of the time period - or is it only recently that the ECR women started doing better?
We need to try to separate the cohort effect (women born around 1979 have better chances women
born in 1959 at the same stage of their life) from the age effect (in relative terms ECR women have
always done better than middle career women although the gap might fluctuate over time).
We would like to know:
2. Success rates for women (compared by age or stage of career)
a. ECR/non-ECR %’s who register with the ARC
b. ECR/non-ECR ratios of application to eligibility
c. ECR/non-ECR ratios of success to application
d. etc. (similar list to above; non-ECR breaks into more carefully defined categories)
3. Track record relative to opportunity assessment
How is track record relative to opportunity currently being evaluated? Anecdotal reports
suggest there may be disciplinary differences here. Do these show up as a weighting placed
on track record for those who ask ‘opportunity’ to be factored in?
We would also like to know: What difference would it make to the track-record score if an
automatic factor for weighting the score were applied – eg x1.3 per child?
[A recent proposal to the NHMRC suggested the following calculation, based on time-use
data. There are surprisingly few studies on time-use of female vs male academics (apparently
there is very poor participation in these studies). However, a small survey provided by Mark
Ellwood from the Johns Hopkins University, Washington, US, indicated that Female
Professors (n=20) spent 11 hours/per week doing research, compared with 14 hours/week
spent by male professors (n=4); this count excludes hours spent on administration,
teaching/advising, writing grants, refereeing papers/grants and other commitments. While this
difference in working hours is likely to be much higher at more junior stages, and in the
months/years following childbirth, the factor highlighted by this study: “1.3x” (times male
professors spend on research compared to female professors) could serve as a very
conservative starting factor to be applied to track record scores. ]
4. Assessment of Quality of CV’s
Are there differences by gender in how publication profiles are assessed? The assumption that this
is likely to be the case would be in line with this the existing research on implicit biases. It is of
course hard to measure how this is operating outside controlled experimental situations. However,
might it be possible to use HERDC points on applications as a crude measure of output and to
compare how men and women were rated against this objective measure?
5. How does this relate to money?
The $ value of grants seems to be going disproportionately to male academics:
For instance, in the 2013 round of the DORA awards only 4 out of 37 went to women
Total DORA funding
Total going to women
= 28,482,421
= 2,999,101
So, although women make up about 30% of academic staff they received only 10% of the DORA
funding.
In the humanities and social sciences (excluding psychology) $9,960,140 was distributed to men, $0
to women, yet these are the areas where women are best represented among the teaching staff.
If one includes psychology among the humanities and social sciences, $12,470,129 was distributed of
which just $629,101 went to a woman, that is just about 5% of funding went to women.
We’d like to get a similar picture for overall Discovery Funding, ARC Professorial Fellows etc.
We would like to know:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
Gender ratios, by scheme, for $’s sought.
Gender ratios, by scheme, for $’s obtained.
Gender ratios, by eligibility, for $’s sought.
Gender ratios, by eligibility, for $’s obtained.
Gender ratios, by registration, for $’s sought.
Gender ratios, by registration, for $’s obtained.
Similar questions, but ECR/non-ECR ratios.
We would also like to know how this compares across the disciplines mentioned, and over time.