News archive
Promoting the value of unofficial academic mentorship
19 October 2021
Kendall Powell
Many hours are absorbed by ‘shadow advising’ students and postdocs, but the role is disproportionately shouldered by minority groups, and not properly recognized.
Three leading women in science share the highlight of their careers
17 May 2021
Shipra Jain
How they forged a new path to success.
Peer-reviewers twice as likely to accept research conducted on men than the same research on women
11 May 2021
Dalmeet Singh Chawla
How biases may play out against female experimental participants.
How altmetrics could help level the playing field for women in STEM
25 March 2021
Bjarne Bartlett et al.
Traditional measures of success favour male researchers. Altmetrics could offer an alternative to help democratize academic evaluation.
Rethinking research assessment: 7 sources of bias to watch out for at your institution
16 March 2021
Gemma Conroy
Recognizing the signs of systemic bias is key to ensuring that hiring, promotion and tenure decisions are fair for everyone.
Equity concerns persist over open-access publishing
9 March 2021
Benjamin Plackett
Senior male researchers at prestigious institutions are the most likely to pay to publish open access, study suggests.
Inclusion in the time of COVID: 14 ways to seize the moment for change
9 February 2021
Carla Cebula et. al*
Flux in the system is a chance to create new and better opportunities in academic STEMM careers for marginalized groups.
Following NASA's lead, researchers are targeting gender bias in instrument time
2 February 2021
Clare Watson
The switch to double-blind peer reviews could help to ensure that female and early-career researchers get a fair shot at using in-demand equipment.
How do you create a diversity program for science that works?
20 October 2020
Andy Tay
Some tested strategies to engage and retain talented under-represented scientists.
Nobel Prizes have a diversity problem even worse than the scientific fields they honor
8 October 2020
Marc Zimmer
This is a problem much larger than simply bias on the part of the Nobel selection committees – it’s systemic.
Women have disrupted research on bird song, and show how diversity can improve all fields of science
16 September 2020
Kevin Omland, Evangeline Rose & Karan Odom
For decades, scientists believed that only male birds sang. Then women entered the field and showed what their predecessors had missed.
Women and minority researchers have more original ideas, but white men are rewarded faster
16 July 2020
Bec Crew
How many trailblazers have been sidelined?
Coronavirus cutbacks could reverse hard-fought equity gains in STEM workforce
25 May 2020
Bec Crew
Women’s jobs are “the first to go" in pandemic-related cuts.
The decline of women's research production during the coronavirus pandemic
19 May 2020
Philippe Vincent-Lamarre et al.
Preprints analysis suggests a disproportionate impact on early career researchers.
Women rival men in scientific research publications and citations
17 March 2020
Jon Brock
But short careers set them back.
Why sexual harassment needs tougher punishment
3 December 2019
Gemma Conroy
Grant and funding withdrawals should be considered, say researchers.
Female researchers in Australia less likely to win major medical grants than males
30 October 2019
Bianca Nogrady
The results come despite a gender equity push at the National Health and Medical Research Council.
Unmasking the hidden networks behind academic success
25 October 2019
Margath Walker
They work well for some.
Why don’t more women win science Nobels?
16 October 2019
Mary K. Feeney
Barriers still hold women back from advancing in the same numbers as men to the upper reaches of STEM academia.
Q&A Wendy Belcher: How to write a journal article in 12 weeks
11 July 2019
Bec Crew
What they don’t teach at your institution.
Discrimination drives LGBT+ scientists to think about quitting
11 July 2019
Elizabeth Gibney
Despite progress, many physical scientists from sexual and gender minorities experience exclusion or harassment at work, finds UK survey.
Gender is not the biggest barrier to career success
14 June 2019
Gemma Conroy
Study paints bleak picture of disadvantage attached to ethnicity and socioeconomic status.
Unconscious bias limits women's careers
15 April 2019
Smriti Mallapaty
The vast gender gap in Japanese science has leading women researchers calling for change.
My CV is gender biased. Here’s what I plan to do about it
13 March 2019
Arian Wallach
A confession: I can count on a single hand the number of women I have invited to collaborate with me on publications and grants.
Data brief: Female first-authors attract more readers
2 January 2019
Gemma Conroy
The work of female researchers has a broader impact than citation analysis suggests, but not in India.
The Nobel gender gap is worse than you think
8 October 2018
Smriti Mallapaty
The Nature Index looks at the share of science medals and prizes that have gone to women.
The cost of staying put
18 September 2018
Smriti Mallapaty
In academia’s great migration, some researchers are
at a disadvantage.
Gender inequalities in science won’t self-correct: it’s time for action
5 September 2018
Sarah Hamylton et al.
"For twenty years people had been telling me how lucky I was to be in our field of research because 'things' were changing for young women. Twenty years later 'things' had not changed.
Lost in Japan, a generation of brilliant women
24 August 2018
Catherine Armitage
Outcry greeted the news that a Tokyo medical school was rigging entrance exam results to favour men, but prominent female scientists say the problem goes further.
Furiously surfing the wave to scientific success
23 August 2018
Merlin Crossley
From the top of the wave the view is sweet, but it's all too easy to fall off.
Science career ads are disproportionately seen by men
1 August 2018
Dina Fine Maron
Marketing algorithms prevent many women from seeing the advertising, even though it’s illegal to target jobs to one gender.
Q&A Mary Frank Fox: Time to ditch the leaky pipeline model
25 May 2018
Smriti Mallapaty
Policies should account for the institutional factors that discriminate against women.
Women paid 20% less in top UK research institutions
29 March 2018
Smriti Mallapaty
Gender pay gap reports reveal extent of male favoritism in the UK.
Women left out of impact assessments
27 March 2018
Julie Davies and Emily Yarrow
Consideration should be given to the research impact agenda’s effects on female academics, say Julie Davies and Emily Yarrow.
Japan's woman problem
8 March 2018
Noriko Osumi
Less than 15% of researchers in Japan are female. Urgent culture change is needed, argues Noriko Osumi.
Women edged out of last-named authorships in top journals
22 January 2018
Jon Brock
A Prestige Index exposes the gender bias in author lists published in top science journals.
The invisible leg-up for males in science
12 January 2018
Merlin Crossley
COMMENT: A professor reflects on his privilege.
Girls will be girls? Gender stereotyping among six-year olds sparks debate
5 January 2018
Gemma Conroy
A study revealing that girls are more likely to link brilliance with boys than with their own gender made headlines on the web.
Female researchers add their superiors as authors
15 December 2017
Dalmeet Singh Chawla
Survey finds that women are more prone to recognizing honorary co-authors in papers, but less likely to pad citation lists.
Study highlights gender imbalance in peer review
23 October 2017
Jon Brock
Women peer review fewer papers than men but are more likely to reject the papers they review, a new study shows.
New tool tracks gender imbalance in medicine
6 October 2017
Gemma Conroy
Gender proportions in
medical schools are almost equal, but disparities persist further up the ranks, a new tracking tool reveals.
Female researchers cite their own work less than men, study
14 February 2017
Flynn Murphy
Female researchers in engineering receive fewer citations, despite producing high-quality research.
Prominent female scientists struggle to retain their edge
11 January 2017
Anthea Lacchia
Tracking the careers of leading scientists reveals maintaining an edge is harder for women in Italy.
Comment: A call to action for gender equality
22 November 2016
Tim Wess
It's time for the academic community to put action to words and stand up for greater gender equality.
New award highlights gender imbalance among peer reviewers
7 November 2016
Ivy Shih
A new online award that recognises the contributions of highly-productive peer reviewers also highlights biases in the system that underscores scholarly publishing.
