Today we will be discussing:measures to achieve sufficient gender balance among applicants for research grants, and among grant evaluation panelsmeasures to ensure that women and men have the same success rates and receive the same average grant amount, taking into account the nature of the research and the type of grant
Gender in Research Grants Process
Today we will be discussing:
- measures to achieve sufficient gender balance among applicants for research grants, and among grant evaluation panels
- measures to ensure that women and men have the same success rates and receive the same average grant amount, taking into account the nature of the research and the type of grant
Active Threads:
2016-Jul-08
2016-Jul-07
8 years 1 month ago
Posted by: Henrietta Dale
Today, 7th July: Gender dimension in Research Content, 2:00 - 4:00pm (Brussels time)measures to ensure that applicants consider the role of sex-gender factors in research contentmeasures to promote systematic analysis of gender dimension in research content, process and outcomesmeasures to develop evidence showing strategic benefits of gender sensitive and responsive research
Comments: 60
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8 years 1 month ago
Comments
Welcome back
Welcome back everybody. Gloria was unable to join us yesterday during the active session but she has made some valuable contributions. I encourage you to look over yesterday's thread when you have time. We are looking foward to hearing from the experts today on these challenging topics. Do remember to introduce yourselves if you haven't. So now I pass over to the group.
How to get gender balance on evaluation panels?
Hi all,
The results of the ERA survey 2014 – show that only 35.8% of research evaluation panels in research funding organisations include at least the 40% target of the under-represented sex in their composition.
What do we think can be done to tackle this?
In Spain for example legislation has been passed making it mandatory for research institutions to push for gender balance in committees, on boards and in groups. For example the Law of Science, Technology and Innovation, recommends that confidential evaluation procedures for recruitment for personnel are established to tackle gender bias and promote a more balanced representation. Research institutions in Spain additionally have to seek gender balanced representation in selection processes for members of expert committee boards for university accreditation.
do any other examples come to mind??
Launching multi-stakeholder campaigns
Hello,
I am Lidia Arroyo, researcher of Gender and ICT Research Group at IN3-UOC and I am also part of the GenPORT team.
Rachel, very inspiring your proposal. This makes me think in the campaign promoted by the Unit of Women and Science in collaboration with the Association of Women in Science and Technology (AMIT) that consists of presenting a study on the gender bias and inequality in research prizes and fundings. I think this is a good practice of a multi-stakeholder collaboration between Governmental Sector, Higher Education and ONG's of working together to visibilise gender inequality in grants.
The study is already on GenPORT . If you have more data and reference on this issue, you are welcome to upload it on GenPORT.
Lidia
Launching multi-stakeholder campaigns
This is very interesting Lidia, is the report available in English?
role of experience of grant writing
In general fewer women than men apply for research grants. Looking at Life Sciences suggests that although in Europe more women than men obtain PhD more men than women are invited to project teams at each level (PhD, PostDoc, Senior role) and this 'exclusion' from successful research teams means less exposure to important research networks, opportunities to collaborate or co-author papers, and also less experience of writing research grants.
The observations above come from data published in the ERC Annual Report. The situation is interesting because ERC grants goes to the PI and so the decision whom to invite to a team rests with the PI (I assume). However, all research funders could help by recommending that successful grantees obey gender equality criteria when project research teams are formed.
gender balanced research teams
As a funder you can make gender balance of the research teams an assessment criteria. At NordForsk gender balance of the research teams is an assessment criteria, at time (depending on the call) it can be an eligibility criteria. The applicants are asked to give a justifiable reason for not having a gender balanced research team.
experience and professors
Elizabeth, you are absolutely right and the process behind the "team" lack any form of transparency. In addition, when it comes to advanced grants end excellence funding funders require a PI in a senior position. If you do not have women in senior positions such as professors, you will not have them among the applicants either. If for every female professor you count three male professors then gender balance among applicants is utopia and there is another problem you need to fix first, that is gender balance in senior positions at RPOs. In the Nordic countries we have taken significant steps to fix this. We have launched a Nordic research programme https://www.nordforsk.org/no/programmer-og-prosjekter/gender-in-the-nord... with the pronounced goal to achieve gender balance
role of experience of grant writing
Elizabeth: We typically require that grant proposals includes members of the team prior to evaluation. The PI then gets feedback on how to attain the gender balance in their human capacity development strategy and succession plan. In some cases we have made gender balance and transformation a condition precedent.
panel gender balance
The easiest way to tackle this is through policy :) If you state that you want gender balanced and diverse panel, then the rest is implementation. As a research funder, it is primarily a question of looking for experts with the right profile. At NordForsk we have a Gender Policy that states that all our panels programme committees, advisory groups as well as our personnel and board should be gender balanced. This can be a challenge and at time we have to divert from the policy. However, it is only possible to divert from it, if a justifiable reason is provided.
as a research funder how do
as a research funder how do you search for experts with the right profile? Does Nordfork have its own database of experts?
NordForsk experts
Not really, we rely on input from our national programme committees, who have access to national databases or we use international databases like http://www.academia-net.org/
We are a very small organisation with very tailored calls and to build-up a database is not possible.
Thanks for clarifying...
Thanks for clarifying... GenPORT is currently building up a database of experts - so that might be something interesting for research funders aiming to achive gender balance in evaluation panels..
experts
Yes, Rachel, this is something which we all look forward to :)
Reviewers databases amongst SGCs in Africa
We have started to experiment with the possibility of sharing our reviewer databases with each other on the continent, and have just done so with Namibia recently. I see this as a great avenue that a diversity of panel members can also be sourced. It is not currently confined in relation to the gender balance concerns but i think its a great start for this in the future
reviewer databases
This is interesting and if there are no legal obstacles this is would be a very good option. In the Nordic countries it would be impossible.
panel gender balance
It would be good to have an evaluation of the success of this Nordforsk policy, when time is right, to compare to the results reported by Isabelle Vernos at Gender Summit 4, which showed that when ERC evaluated if success rates for their male and female apllicants were different depending on the male-female composition of the panels they saw no difference. Perhaps, gender balance is needed. Gender balance on teams has been shown to improve collective intelligence of the team, so one would expect it also influencing how grant award assessment criteria are communicated by panel members and how decisions are agreed on.
NordForsk policy
Elizabeth, Yes you are very right, it would be good. The policy was adopted in June 2013 so it is not that long ago. We will evaluate it. When it comes to panels: this is really a very tricky thing and research shows that in gender balanced panels women panelists tend to be harder on women applicants than male panellists. I really think that it is important to get inside the panels and analyse the power structures there in order to see what is going on.
Achieving gender balance in the South African context
A number of universities in South Africa have historically focused only on teaching. This meant that many academic staff did not hold doctoral degrees and thus could not supervise doctoral candidates. Our higher education landscape is also differentiated with highly ranked universities performing well because they have a higher number of academics with doctoral degrees, good research infrastructure, good support mechanisms and a higher success rate for grant applications. On the other end of the spectrum we have universities that are under resourced (sometimes poorly managed) with little research infrastructure and poor performance. It is in this climate that women researchers work and for many years the NRF grant evaluation process did not take these challenges into consideration. In order to help bridge the gap from just teaching to also conducting research, the department of Science and Technology through the National Research Foundation (NRF) has a suite of funding instruments for emerging researchers that include fellowships, research, mobility and sabbatical grants. While preference is given to women without compromising excellence, the number of women who eventually become established researchers remains low.
To address this, the NRF is now developing initiatives aimed at addressing the underrepresentation of women in senior research positions by implementing international best practice in relation to gender equity. These include working closely with internal and external stakeholders to inter alia:
• Increase applications from women researchers by encouraging and training them to apply and to request more funding.
• Improve gender balance among the gatekeepers of research funding which include panel members and reviewers, and organise gender training for all involved in the funding process. Ensuring women have equal access to the inner mechanisms of research funding could also have a major impact on improving their application rates.
• Demand a gender dimension as criterion for funding by ensuring gendered research if applicable, or by demanding gender action plans as part of the implementation strategy for projects.
• Collaborate with the International Relations and Cooperation Directorate at the NRF to increase networking opportunities for women by providing mobility support.
• Establish strategic partnerships in support of gender equality with organisations such the Organisation for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD), the International Women’s Forum of South Africa (IWFSA) and the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
The first two bullets are fairly easy to accomplish but I welcome advice on formulating a gender action plan.
teaching and research
Priscilla, this is interesting. The low status of teaching and the prestige of research is a huge challenge for the entire higher educational sector. It is very common to find women in teaching and men in research. In countries, where research and teaching are done at the same universities (as in the Nordic countries) we also find the same pattern. Universities that have the responsibility to educate to future work force of a country get very little credit for it, as the rankings are based on research performances. These universities compete with Stanford and Harward, which is very unfair.
SFI - gender balance in panels and in research teams
HI all, currently 22% of Science Foundation Ireland’s grants are held by women, a percentage comparable with funders worldwide. SFI has made it a priority to increase this number, and related policies are included in the SFI Gender Strategy 2016-2020. Examples of such polices include:
• SFI provides a maternity/adoptive allowance for our researchers
• SFI have incentivised Irish research performing organisations to submit more applications from women to our flagship early career programme, the Starting Investigator Grant (SIRG). Previously, applications to the SIRG programme were capped at five applications per research organisation, with no reference to gender balance. In 2015, the cap was raised to 12 provided at least 6 of the applications made per research organisation were from female applicants. As a result, the application rate from female applicants has increased from 27% in 2013 to 47% in 2015, and the funding success rate for female applicants has increased from 27% to 55% in the same period.
• SFI ask the international experts who evaluate applications to consider career breaks and periods of part-time work when assessing an applicants’ productivity over a timeframe
• SFI have an organisation wide target of securing a minimum 30% female reviewers as part of any evaluation panel
• SFI monitors the gender breakdown of research teams (PhDs, postdocs, research assistants, management staff and the different academic grades) of all its funding portfolio, and publishes this data annually.
• To ensure that the research community is aware of the supports available to them, SFI provides clear and easy access to information on all our gender initiatives through the “SFI Women in Science” webpage (http://www.sfi.ie/funding/sfi-women-in-science/).
Thank you Elena. I am
Thank you Elena. I am particularly interested in your incentiving the SRG. This seems like a very simple yet extrememly effective method. Did you encounter any resistance to the implemtation of this?
SFI-SIRG incentives
Thanks Henrietta. Actually, given the commitment of SFI's director general to improving our numbers, there was very little resistance to implement this measure. We heard one disgruntled male applicant complaining about SFI applying "quotas", but hopefully with a bit more communication this will dissipate in the future. This is not at all about quotas. So all in all, no, no resistance and a fantastic results! Unfortunately incentives can only be applied if you have a cap to the number of submissions. We cannot do this for our Investigators programme.
Gatekeeping in panels
I could not agree with you more regarding your point 3. I have recently become aware of the terms 'gate-keeping' in evaluation committees. The participation of women in evaluation panels is critical not only for purposes of bringing to the attention of other members issues of implicit bias, explaining gaps in women’s research careers but also so that they can understand what goes into gatekeeping. Staff of science granting councils can/ should play a critical area in making sure that the selection of panel members is diverse for this purpose
training - gender dimension and implicit bias
Since yesterday, I have had the chance to think about t training. I think it is very important to train research bureaucrats who implement the policies. I also think call texts should be vetted by gender experts in order to guarantee that the gender dimensions is properly integrated. A research funder can undertake this task easily. It is much more difficult to train researchers who consider themselves experts in their field. This does not mean that training is not important just that it has to be done by a person whose research credentials are unquestionable, in order for it to be effective on researchers. I think training is far more effective when it comes to implicit bias and I do think that it works. I also think that it is essential to monitor panels and I think that a funder should routinely do it. Monitoring the panels can be very effective.
Assessors/ panel moderators
At the NRF, we have a moderator reviewer for each panel whose responsibility is to quality assure the deliberations and conclusions of the panel based on the evaluation criteria. I think it would be less difficult for us, in this case, to utilize this system for the recommendation that you mention here.
SFI training - implicit bias
Hi Lotta, I agree. All SFI staff have received unconscious bias training, and measures are being scoped out to ensure that all SFI reviewers receive unconscious bias training before evaluating proposals. However, as Elizabeth mentioned yesterday, evaluations of this approach are not yet available so we don't know for certain if this works.
Besides providing equal
Besides providing equal opportunities, we should consider that women also have different perspectives and views, so inclusion benefits both men anbd women. I would suggest reserch is required to explore whether and how gender power relations affect females and males in evaluation process. The inclusion of gender frameworks and questions would help.
NRF/ some African SGCs- Amongst applicants for research grants
In addition to the information provided by Priscilla above, at the NRF/ some granting councils on the continent, we are starting to pay attention to a number of key areas that are a challenge in relation to encouraging more women to apply for research grants:
• Workloads (they have such heavy teaching workloads that they simply do not have time to apply for grants)
• Mentoring (we will be piloting a comprehensive programme aimed at mentoring for black women academics at our institutions in South Africa, and that includes a suit of offerings such as writing retreats, research assistants etc). We have very few number of black female academics fully participating in the full range of grant offerings at the NRF
The following are some additional measures that have been employed:
• Quotas/ targets/ gender specific grant offerings: In 2015, the NRF awarded 40 women researchers at our institutions research chair positions (a research excellence initiative that focuses on postgraduate supervisions and research- with no teaching expectations). This has certainly contributed to tipping the scales, identifying high performing researchers at our institutions. We also have the Thuthuka ( programme (PhD, post-PhD and researcher rating tracks) that aims to develop human capital and to improve the research capacities of designated researchers (black [African, Indian and Coloured], female or disabled) with the ultimate aim of redressing historical imbalances. The Direction du Financement de la Recherche et du Développement Technologique in Senegal has a funding instrument only geared towards women researchers and postgraduate students, and they have seen an increase in applicants as a result of this
• Information brokering: Are we packaging information about the granting systems, processes, and types of grants in various formats that are easy to decipher, especially for women who are caught up in heavy teaching workloads, for example? The use of different types of media, meeting with women before grants are open for applications, and offering to support them where there are challenges are some measures that we are starting to use now.
On the Thuthuka programme: http://www.nrf.ac.za/sites/default/files/documents/2015%20Thuthuka%20Man...
Gender difference in grant size
A study of 10,000 awards given to 7000 individuals by Wellcome (The Lancet, Volume 380, Issue 9840, Page 474, 4 August 2012) showed that women received smaller grants on average. A smaller grant means less resources to employ supporting team and perhaps diveriting the PI's attention and time away from core research problems (and proposal writing) to operational problems. The study suggested that possible explanation suggested is that women are less 'ambitious'. Though other research points to gender differences in attitudes to intellectual risk. At any case, both are learned behaviours, which could be corrected if RFO's offered training (for women and men) on realisitc budgeting of research projects in the particular fields they fund. Is anyone aware if this is already happening?
Uncomplicated gender budgeting measures
I am not aware of training being offered on realistic budgeting but in line with your recommendations, i think that uncomplicated gender budgeting by RFOs can be put in place to acknowledge that male and female PI’s have different research needs, and therefore would need different provisions such the possibility of hiring a bigger team of research assistants (for families in science, for example) as part of their grants. Of course it does require that the researchers' budget for these needs.
For the Southern African
For the Southern African region, the Southern African Research and Innovation Management Association (SARIMA) offers a range of training workshops each year which include budgeting (http://www.sarima.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/SARIMA-Training-Event...) but I don't think it includes focus on the gender disparity you've mentioned. SARIMA has sister organisations on the continent providing similar capacity development interventions in research management and technology transfer.
less ambitious
Today we face a situation where a big part of the research is not reproducible (which means that it is not research at all but random) so I would really welcome some less ambitious and accurate research!! I doubt that my part of the world would welcome gender budgeting any time soon. Regarding the training in budgeting ... depending on the research the budget looks very different. I am very much in favour of open instruments with very few guidelines because that allows the researchers to develop the research questions without any constraints. However, based on the questions applicants pose I do recognise that the budget is very time consuming. It could very well be that some training could be put in place.
Learned behaviour and grant size
Thanks Elizabeth, I am not surprise about these results as I have a lot of anecdotal evidence that women are less good at putting themselves forward when it comes to applying for funding. The approach that we are taking at the moment to increase the application rates from women to all programmes, is to support the implementation of the Athena SWAN Ireland programme at a national level since 2015. The Athena Swan charter, established in 2005 by the Equality Challenge Unit, UK, aims to drive forward cultural and systemic changes within research performing institutions. Training and mentorship of female researchers should be addressed by the RPOs if they progress on the Athena SWAN Charter.
The goal of the Athena SWAN Charter is to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) employment in higher education and research. Athena Swan enables organisations to apply for an award recognising their commitment to, and progress on, equality and diversity.
Athena SWAN can be defined as a top-down approach, while agency-specific measure are a bottom-up approach.
Hi I am representing the
Hi I am representing the Gender Policy Committee (GPC) of the European Association of Science Editors (EASE).
I agree that the best way to get gender balance on evaluation panels is through inclusion in the funding policy and policy implementation.
The EASE GPC recently produced a the SAGER guidelines (Sex And Gender Equity in Research) addressing authors of scientific publications and peer reviewes to imporve reporting of sex and gender in research. Editors can set rules to publish in their journals and authors should comply if they wish to have articles published in their journal. Similarly,
I think that careful consideration of the gender dimension should be included in policies as well as in the instructions provided to reviewers in evaluations panels.
The SAGER guidelines may help in this regard https://researchintegrityjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s410...
I report here the basic principles inspiring the Guidelines
- Appropriate use of terminology (sex versus gender) in any part of the article to avoid confusion;
- Differentiation of research subjects by sex or gender, and a meaningful analysis to reveal differences and similarities.
whenever possible in the results, even if not initially expected.The guidelines provide specific recomendations according to the section of journal article.The guidelines address editors, authors and referees.
I wonder if similar guidelines can be set to get gender balance in panels and research teams.
Recommendations from Global Research Council
Following the last meeting of GRC in New Delhi, where the NRF held a side event on practical measures to tackle the gender dimension in reseaerch, France Cordova the head of NSF had a letter pubished in Nature (v534, p 475, 23 June) where she states the following:
"The national research heads agreed to “expect and encourage improved equality and diversity policies and practices” within their respective research provinces, and recommended a list of actions. These included diversity training, recognizing unconscious bias, implementing family-friendly policies and creating pathways for women
to rise to leadership positions. We agreed to collect follow-up data and make them available for comparative analysis."
Heads of 50 research councils attended the meeting, which focused on the status of women in research, and on interdisciplinarity.
GRC Africa Regional Meeting
In November 2016 in Maputo, 16 heads of science granting councils in Africa will meet (hosted jointly by the FNI-Mozambique and NRF-South Africa) to prepare for the next GRC global gathering in 2017. On the sidelines of this event, NRF, UNESCO and GenderInSITE will host a workshop that will focus on how African SGCs will take forward these recommendations from the GRC 2016 Global gathering
Better chances of equality in social sciences?
There was a study published in Nature (525:7568, 9 Seoptember 2015 by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) which analysed Research Grants 'open call' scheme between 2008 and 2013. The study examined whether women and men submitted a similar number of grants, and their respective success rates and sizes of awarded grants. The UK government's Higher Education Statistics Agency were used for data on numbers of men and women in social-science academic jobs in the United Kingdom. The study found that women were less likely than men to apply for grant funding (making up 41% of applications), even though there were only slightly fewer women (48%) than men in social-science academic posts. But women and men were equally successful in winning ESRC grants (18% success rate for both). Interestigly, women's application rates and funding success declined with age; men in all age groups had a similar success rate. Women under the age of 40 applied for as many grants as men in that age group, and were more successful. Women over 50 applied for fewer grants and were less successful than men in the same age group.
Better chances of equality in social sciences?
The Swedish Research Council has done studies on their own processes. They concluded the opposite, that younger women are less likely to apply. Their report from 2015 An Equal process (in English) is interesting. At NordForsk we have a very strict definition of roles, which helps making the process more transparent. We have different groups that do the rating, the ranking and the funding. This definition of roles together with clear formalised criteria can help structuring the panels' discussions.
Increasing the buy-in for gender balance
...or otherwise put, framing gender balance around the unspoken question: "What's in it for me?"...
Can I throw something else in the mix? The promotion of gender equality and equity in the workplace, like all transformative measures, needs strong and genuine buy-in from senior management and decision-makers. This genuine buy-in MAY result from a strong belief in the principles of equality. In reality, more often than not, financial considerations and convincing business cases are the only way to achieve it.
McKinsey and Kinsella have published a number of reports demonstrating how diversity in the workplace results in increased income for private companies. These reports have quantified the economic benefit of having a diverse workplace in the private sector. I am not aware of a convincing, straight-to-the point, quantitative business case for equal gender representation in research teams, as a driver of e.g. increased academic production and/or increased scientific excellence, etc. Some studies are out there, but in my knowledge they are sectorial or very specific, hard to derive a general business case from it.
A business case for gender diversity in the research environment should be clearly put together, maybe by social scientists? I'd be interested in views on the topic!
Post review/evaluation feedback for women
Funders typically engage with successful candidates but for large strategic investment initiatives like the Research Chairs initiative where women are seriously underrepresented, the NRF recently decided to give individual feedback to women who were unsuccessful in the initial round so that they can address critical issues and reapply in the next round. It will be interesting to see how many of the 18 women we are currently working with will be successful in the next round. I'm not sure we have the capacity to do it for all our funding instruments but we will prioritize some instruments for this kind of feedback.
that's really interetsing..
that's really interetsing.. yes it will be interesting to see how it affects the outcomes!
Danish sad experience
I quote below a letter in Nature (v 519, p 158, 12 march 2015) from Darach Watson and Jens Hjorth, Niels Bohr Institute, University
"Women’s grants lost in inequality ocean
Denmark last year launched its YDUN programme, an experimental one-year government research-funding scheme specifically for women. It was branded as sexist and provoked a political squall, so is unlikely to be repeated. Our analysis indicates that the 110million krone (US$16 million) allocated to YDUN is roughly the same as the shortfall in Danish grant money won by women compared with men every year over the past 10 years. The proportion of successful grant applications in 2009–13 to the Danish Council for Independent Research (DFF), which also ran YDUN, was roughly comparable for male and female researchers according to their own analysis (14% and 11%, respectively. However, our analysis of DFF data since the council’s foundation in 2005 revealed that this 3% difference in success rates is significant: it corresponds to a male advantage of an average of 104 million krone per year, comparable to the entire YDUN funding allocation for women."
Adding to the Danish case: data from ERC
I want to add to the Danish case the fact that since the beginning of ERC, and with the exception of 2-3 occassions, men have been systematically more successful in getting grants than women across all three areas (physical and engineering, social and humanities, and life sciences). The percentages vary from 0-6%. The Danish calculation shows that these differences create significant added benefit for men.
Advancing women
I'm wondering whether the difference in resource should go directly to the researcher through a separate grant for women (which resulted in the outcry), or be awarded to research institutes to drive gender equity programmes...?
Is it better to give grants to PIs or institutions?
This is very intersting point, Priscilla. My assumption was that giving grants to individuals allows them to grow as research leaders, but now I am thinking that if success favours men than this certainly a sure way to reinforces the status quo.
This is an interesting
This is an interesting example of an institutional appraoch....In Germany the Federal Ministry for research and education has developed the Programme for Female Professors (2008-2017) targeting universities. Universities can apply for funding for a maximum of three professorial chairs – the institution must ensure the recruitment of a female professor. This must be accompanied by demonstration of institutional –wide gender equality measures i.e. by submitting a Gender Equality Plan - for which additional funding is available.
Nordics
There are some experiences from the Nordic countries which ended up in the EC court. In addition many of the temporary professorships were not made permanent when the universities had to pay for them ... so I do think that the contextual frame which you refer to in the German case is very important.
The Norway case
In Norway, the research council has a programme called BALANSE that goes to the universities to promote and implement gender balance among senior positions in higher education. The jury is still out on this. There are various options on the table. Give the money to the universities, who hire the persons doing the research, giving individual grants and funding teams. I think, the most transparent from a funder's perspective is the individual grant --- you only need to control the evaluation process. I think what goes on at the universities is really messy ...
The ERC case is very sad as
The ERC case is very sad as is the Danish one, not only because of YDUN but also because they have only 20 % women in senior positions at universities. DFFF was evaluated and criticized gender imbalance and lack of women and to remedy this they developed YDUN, a programme earmarked for women. I believe that you will gate higher success rates for women is you can fix the universities, but of course that is easier said than done.
comments
am impressed by the number of measures in place or proposed to achieve gender balance among applicants for research grants and among grant evaluation panels
We are far from promoting such measures in Latin America Although the current situation of women researchers differs by country the number of women researchers is amazing . According to UNESCO one in five countries has achieved gender parity , whereby 45% to 55% of researchers are women . A recent assessment of Argentina on Women in Science, Technology and Innovation held by the UNESCO Regional Chair on Women, Science and Technology in LA, shows that 58% of total researchers are women and more women than men ( 56% ) concluded graduate studies Master and doctoral degrees.
However there is no data available of gender differences or better said inequalities among applicants for research grants; a study that should be done .According to my opinion it should include also other variables such as type of university ,( public /private) location ( there might be differences among women and men researchers based in the Capital of each country, big or small towns,) disciplines or study field, etc)
Going back to measures: although I agree that there is a need to have policies and measures to assure gender equality in S&T , my main concern is how to create the conditions, the messages, for people to acknowledge the meaning and value of those measures for the quality and relevance of their field of science
In my expereince training is necessary but some times insuficient or even negative if it is based in an " inculcation" pedagogy .