Success in grant applications for women and men

Abstract

Sex-disaggregated data on the success rates of applications to the individual grants at the European Research Council and selected national funding agencies show similar outcomes for women and men. There are large differences in success rates between countries and in all countries with applicants to the European Research Council men are applying disproportionally more (and women less) compared to the demography of the researchers in the higher education sectors in the respective countries. Therefore, the proportion of women funded is even lower than their representation in the fields of Natural Science and Engineering and Technology. Some contributing factors are discussed and the question on how the current and future success rates could be interpreted is raised.