It seems it has generated a lot of discussions over the week end on #ARC funding. I am sorry I can't reply to all of you. Instead I will discuss couple of points and add some extra data on the #NHMRC project grants. So here some points of discussion (Thread) https://twitter.com/GaetanBurgio/status/1327382782780194817

1/ As a few pointed out, this graph the % of academic level B (senior postdoc) to E (Full professor) among the awardees. This is NOT the success rate for DP.

2/ We don't know the success rate yet for DP21. The ARC ususally release a report but these are for all CIs not lead CI

So the concern here is nothing has evolved regarding gender equity and competitiveness for DP for the last 5 years despite policies the ARC put into place for gender equity.

https://www.arc.gov.au/policies-strategies/strategy/gender-equality-research

There were few explanations raised on twitter -> lack of lead women CI applicants, too much weight on track record scoring (40%), conscious and unconscious biais against women ..... or simply there is no bias against women all success rate is equally distributed among applicants.

To try to address this question, I plotted the % awardees per academic level for NHMRC (projects/ideas grants) vs ARC DP. Legend are same. Please spot the specacular Level E men drop for the NHMRC since 2018 So the question is what the NHMRC did to address gender equity issues?

To address this issue, the #NHMRC put in place.
- Set aside additional ~35 grants/year for lead women CIs
- Quota for the Nb of grants to apply and hold for all applicants
- Take into account relative to opportunity/career interruption
- Reduce/abolish TR scoring

It worked !

While I have strictly no issues against level E men getting funded (all DP awardees fully deserved getting funded), a fairer evaluation of projects a less weight on track record scoring would be more than welcome. I have written a lot about it. My favourite is a partial lottery.

For more discussion on a partial lottery, please refer to this thread https://twitter.com/GaetanBurgio/status/1120622967786889216. Besides these points, there are some serious structural issues in higher education and research in Australia but this would be for another time, another discussion....