Gendered inequalities in competitive grant funding: an overlooked dimension of gendered power relations in academia

ABSTRACT

Research grant funding influences the organisation of academic work and academic careers. We problematise general approaches to gender bias in research grant funding and argue that it fails to include the wider structures of inequality and the unequal gendered power relations in academia. Approaching the subject with gender budgeting we challenge assumed gender-neutral practices. The objective is to illuminate how the gendered funding system and (the previous and subsequent) gendered structures of academia are maintained. The whole grants scheme is assessed, drawing on statistical data collected on the whole population of a medium-size, comprehensive research and educational institution in Iceland, and two types of competitive grants. The data is measured against the pool of applicants and comparisons within and between fields and ranks are made. By including the structures of inequality and the gendered power relations, the results show how the funding system is biased not only in favour of men, but towards the male-dominated and culturally masculine positions and fields. This approach illustrates the need to address the whole academic system in order to challenge the norms that maintain and reproduce gender inequalities.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic careers
• research grants
• gender bias
• gendered organisations
• gender budgeting

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Finnborg S. Steinþórsdóttir http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9581-0310

Þorgerður Einarsdóttir http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8906-0760

Gyða M. Pétursdóttir http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7678-2008

Notes

1 UI breaks down the data by academic rank, except for a small group of scientists, scholars and specialists (ranks for academic staff with no teaching obligations). For an overview, see Hjálmarsdóttir (2016).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the EU Seventh Framework Programme under Grant n°611737 and the Eimskip Fund of the University of Iceland.