Delivering workplace diversity in science takes time but there is cause for optimism. David Payne reports on a new collaborative approach between the Francis Crick Institute, Wellcome, and GlaxoSmithKline.
Tag Archives: equality
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David Payne investigates the wide gaps in salary between academics.
The Office of National Statistics (ONS) issued its annual survey of hours and earnings last month. Scientists are conspicuously absent from The Guardian‘s subsequent trawl of the data to highlight the UK’s top 10 best paid jobs. These include brokers (1), CEOs (2), pilots (4) air traffic controllers (7), and doctors (8). Continue reading
Chemists call for boycott over all-male speaker line up
Reply
Clarification added on 18 Feburary*.
Scientists are being urged to boycott a major international chemistry conference after its preliminary list of invited speakers and chairs featured no women.
An open letter on the website Change.org has called for a boycott of the 15th International Congress of Quantum Chemistry (ICQC), to be held in Beijing in June 2015. The move came after a list was posted on the conference website that allegedly showed no women among 24 speakers and 5 chairs and honorary chairs. The list, screenshots of which were seen by Nature, has since been taken down.
According to a blog by chemist Christopher Cramer of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, the organizers had invited 27 scientists as speakers, only one of whom was a woman.
The letter, which has gained more than 600 signatures in 48 hours, was authored by three eminent theoretical chemists: Emily Carter of Princeton University in New Jersey; Laura Gagliardi of the University of Minnesota; and Anna Krylov of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
It reads: “It happened again — another major theoretical chemistry conference features an all-male program. One of us began boycotting such conferences 14 years ago and can’t believe that 14 years later we are still seeing such overt discrimination.”
In an e-mail to Nature, Josef Michl, president of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science (IAQMS), which runs the congress, said that the three letter writers had pointed out “a very serious problem” and were “justifiably concerned” with the partial list, which accounted for two-thirds of the eventual speakers.
According to Michl, Zhigang Shuai, a theoretical chemist from Tsinghua University who heads the conference organizing committee, had already asked Michl to send academy members the partial list and ask for suggestions of speakers — specifically women — to complete the line-up. The response to this had been excellent and the final list would be gender-balanced, Michl adds.
Michl says that it had been a mistake to release a partial and very imbalanced list, because “it can easily be misinterpreted”, adding that he would be sending a letter of apology to the three signatories and members of the IAQMS. Michl’s letter, a draft of which has been seen Nature, adds that a large fraction of the people already on the list were outside the control of the organizing committee, including medalists and newly elected IAQMS members and previous organizers.
However, Carter says that asking for female speakers after publicizing the all-male list of speakers looked like “tokenism” and that organizers should have solicited advice long before posting the list. “Asking afterward definitely is a subtle message that we ‘need to add some women, let’s just dig around the dregs’,” she says.
“There are mediocre scientists of both genders, but there are also outstanding scientists of both genders. And to not have bothered to think about this — or to think about the message it sends to every young scientists when you have a meeting that only has men speaking — is deeply discouraging,” she says. “This happens over and over again, and it’s not reasonable.”
Organizers of the ICQC say, however, that the message sent to members, which included the partial list of 24 speakers and request for further suggested speakers — specifically women — was sent on 9 February. This was done before the partial list was posted on the conference website, on 14 February.
The letter includes a link to the Women in Theoretical Chemistry web directory, which lists more than 300 female scientists holding tenured and tenure-track academic positions or equivalents in related areas. “Many of these women are far more distinguished than many of the men being invited to speak at these conferences,” the letter reads.
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*The article was amended to include the ICQC organizers’ clarification that the request for additional speakers was sent out five days before the list was posted on the website.
Achieving gender equality in academic careers: Queen’s case study
Does your university make provision for maternity leave in its PhD studentships? Does it insist on female representation on all committees, or run a buddy system linking female postdocs to female PhD students? These are just some of the initiatives in place at Queen’s University Belfast, which was recently named as the lead university in the United Kingdom for tackling the unequal representation of women in science.
Queen’s has been given a ‘Silver University’ award by the Athena SWAN Charter, a recognition scheme that rewards UK universities committed to advancing and promoting the careers of women working in science, engineering and technology (SET). It’s the highest level of award currently held in the United Kingdom, and Queen’s is the only university with the accolade. Tom Millar, dean of the faculty of engineering and physical sciences, says the university’s gender-equality initiatives are “part and parcel” of the regular business of the institution. “It is this integration, or mainstreaming, of an equal opportunities focus that has made our efforts sustainable,” he says.
Other examples of initiatives at Queen’s include:
- Personal mentoring programme for female postdocs and academic staff
- Monitoring of processes at all stages of recruitment and career development
- Regular surveys, courses and workshops on aspects of academic careers
- Profiling of female scientists on websites and in print
- Teaching-free semester for staff returning from maternity leave
Yvonne Galligan, director of Queen’s Gender Initiative — which has been the main driver of recent progress since it was established in 1999 — says the university’s ambition is to create a gender-equal environment for staff and students. “Winning the institutional Silver award was not an ‘event’,” she says. “It is [one] stage in a process.”
To achieve a Gold award, the highest possible, Millar and Galligan say the university must extend its gender-equality success to its arts and humanities departments and do more to tackle the loss of female academics at key career stages — the so-called ‘leaky pipeline’. It’s a process that will take time — Peter Mason from Athena SWAN explains that to be awarded Gold, a university would need the majority of its departments to hold individual Gold departmental awards. Currently only the department of chemistry at the University of York is at this level.
While Queen’s works towards this goal, Millar is understandably proud of the university’s achievement to date: “It is recognition of the enormous contribution and commitment, for more than a decade, of many staff, academic and non-academic, male and female.”
How does Queen’s compare to your institution for gender equality? Could you see similar initiatives being implemented where you work? Let us know your thoughts.