Department of Family and Emergency Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Université Laval, Québec City, QC, Canada.
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
Lancet. 2019 Feb 9;393(10171):531-540. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32611-4.
Across countries and disciplines, studies show male researchers receive more research funding than their female peers. Because most studies have been observational, it is unclear whether imbalances stem from evaluations of female research investigators or of their proposed research. In 2014, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research created a natural experiment by dividing investigator-initiated funding applications into two new grant programmes: one with and one without an explicit review focus on the calibre of the principal investigator.
We analysed application success among 23 918 grant applications from 7093 principal investigators in all investigator-initiated Canadian Institutes of Health Research grant programmes between 2011 and 2016. We used generalised estimating equations to account for multiple applications by the same applicant and compared differences in application success between male and female principal investigators under different review criteria.
Overall application success across competitions was 15·8%. After adjusting for age and research domain, the predicted probability of success in traditional programmes was 0·9 percentage points lower for female applicants than male applicants (95% CI 2·0 lower-0·2 higher; odds ratio 0·934, 95% CI 0·854-1·022). In the new programme, in which review focused on the proposed science, the gap remained 0·9 percentage points (3·2 lower-1·4 higher; 0·998, 0·794-1·229). In the new programme with an explicit review focus on the calibre of the principal investigator, the gap was 4·0 percentage points (6·7 lower-1·3 lower; 0·705, 0·519-0·960).
Gender gaps in grant funding are attributable to less favourable assessments of women as principal investigators, not of the quality of their proposed research. We discuss reasons less favourable assessments might occur and strategies to foster fair and rigorous peer review.
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在不同国家和学科领域，研究表明男性研究人员获得的研究经费多于女性。由于大多数研究都是观察性的，因此尚不清楚这种不平衡是源于对女性研究人员及其拟议研究的评估，还是源于对女性研究人员的评估。2014 年，加拿大卫生研究院通过将研究员主导的资助申请分为两个新的资助计划创造了一个自然实验，一个计划明确关注主要研究员的能力，另一个则没有。
我们分析了 2011 年至 2016 年期间所有研究员主导的加拿大卫生研究院资助计划中 7093 位主要研究员的 23918 项资助申请的成功情况。我们使用广义估计方程来解释同一申请人的多次申请，并根据不同的评审标准比较了男性和女性主要研究员之间的申请成功率差异。
所有竞赛的总体申请成功率为 15.8%。在调整年龄和研究领域后，与男性申请人相比，女性申请人在传统计划中的成功预测概率低 0.9 个百分点（95%置信区间 2.0 个百分点以下-0.2 个百分点以上；优势比 0.934，95%置信区间 0.854-1.022）。在新计划中，重点关注拟议科学的评审，差距仍然为 0.9 个百分点（3.2 个百分点以下-1.4 个百分点以上；0.998，0.794-1.229）。在新计划中，明确关注主要研究员的能力，差距为 4.0 个百分点（6.7 个百分点以下-1.3 个百分点以下；0.705，0.519-0.960）。
资助申请中的性别差距归因于对女性作为主要研究员的评估不利，而不是对其拟议研究的质量评估不利。我们讨论了评估不利可能发生的原因以及促进公平和严格同行评审的策略。
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