ScienceGeist

Sexism has long skewed research, but a new wave of scientists is shifting course.

Scholars say their field is coming under increasing pressures from forces outside the academy who want to delegitimize it.

A spate of bullying allegations have rocked several high-profile science institutions. Here's how researchers, universities, funders and others are dealing with the issue.

How are Hungarian, Polish and Swedish gender scholars responding to criticism and campaigns to discredit their work? Not only do they emphasize the intrinsic value of gender studies - they also use humour to counter the anti-gender campaigns.

Many believe it is difficult to reconcile demands for gender equality and measures such as moderate quotas with academia's conception of quality. This is according to a new master's thesis on assessments and gender in hiring processes for senior-level positions.

Male post-docs and PhD candidates work more than their female colleagues, but female professors work the most hours of all, according to the latest time use survey.

Evidence overwhelmingly shows structural barriers to women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, and suggests that the onus cannot be on women alone to confront the gender bias in our community. Here, I share my experience as a scientist and a woman who has collected data during more than ten years of scientific training about how best to navigate the academic maze of biases and barriers.

In October 2018, former Catalyst Grant winner 'Ada Lovelace Day' (ALD) celebrated its tenth year of showcasing the achievements of overlooked women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). Championing for greater diversity in STEM, and changing the culture and demographics of research, is a year-round effort, and one that ALD supports. We wanted to help extend the celebration of women in science throughout the year, but also use the tools we have available to us to scientifically analyse the state of gender imbalance in research, and evaluate whether these are changing over time.

The main aim of CHANGE is it to support research performing organisations (RPOs) to design and implement gender equality plans. This will be achieved by involving key actors, called Transfer Agents (TAs), within each organisation who will together with the core consortium partners transmit co-produced gender equality knowledge inside their institutions.

Men are overrepresented in senior academic positions in Economics. What factors can explain this phenomenon, and how can we make the academic environment more inclusive?

The major machine-learning meeting, now known as NeurIPS, has faced increasing criticism over its name.

The Royal Society of Chemistry has a plan to boost retention and promotion of female academic researchers.

The Financial Times is automatically warning its journalists if their articles quote too many men, in an attempt to force writers to look for expert women to include in their pieces.

The European Commission launched today the sixth edition of the EU Prize for Women Innovators. The Prize sheds light on the outstanding work of female entrepreneurs who have brought their ideas to market, and aims to inspire the next generation of innovators.

Bullying helpline and childcare grants among measures outlined in Royal Society of Chemistry report that reveals why chemistry has an equality problem.

The social scientist Marita Haas explored the interdependence of female career paths and institutional norms by melding gender, profession and biography. Leaving behind traditional role models requires an encouraging environment and structural measures, concludes the expert. 

Without peers of the same gender, female Ph.D. students are less likely to graduate, according to a new study.

Featuring a woman in science on the highest denomination banknote would celebrate her achievements and offer an inspiring role model.

I counted women and men in a bunch of magazine issues, made some graphs… and then got stuck. I wanted to tell people about these numbers, but how could I explain them? Did they actually show anything that wasn’t already obvious?

On Ada Lovelace Day, we should rethink access to scientific fields, says researcher Jess Wade.

CERN considers the presentation delivered by an invited scientist during a workshop on High Energy Theory and Gender as highly offensive. It has therefore decided to remove the slides from the online repository, in line with a Code of Conduct that does not tolerate personal attacks and insults.

October meeting in Germany reverses the usual gender ratio

A new working group will document the extent of sexual harassment in Norwegian academia. Now Sweden is encouraging Norway to follow its lead and set aside money for research in this area.

US agency plans to create a central reporting system and launch training and education campaigns.

The National Science Foundation's rules for reporting harassment by grant recipients are the strictest yet instituted by a US government science agency.

The Swiss Science Council reports that according to recent statistics, the gender gap in the technical sciences and engineering fields is still disproportionately high in Europe and North America. European countries with high-income have a surprisingly low proportion of female engineers in research and industry, in comparison to developing countries like Eastern Europe, Central and South Asia and Latin America.

We're working to get copies of Angela Saini's Inferior into all of New York City's middle and high schools.

Six researchers offer tips for navigating through and beyond gender barriers.

Male post-docs and PhD candidates work more than their female colleagues, but female professors work the most hours of all, according to the latest time use survey.