A new 50:50 funding target for one of Australia’s largest funding schemes was launched by the Government on 12 October 2022.
The Federal Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mark Butler, in a joint announcement with Minister for Women, Senator Katy Gallagher, stated that from 2023, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) will set targets to award equal numbers of senior grants to women and men in a new commitment to address gender inequities in research funding.
The new initiative will see NHMRC introduce a special measure under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 that extends targets to fund an equal number of Leadership grants for women and men in the senior Investigator Grant scheme.
The scheme is NHMRC’s largest funding program and a major investment in Australia’s health and medical research workforce, awarding some $370 million in research funding each year.
Minister Butler said that this was an incredibly important and exciting initiative to improve gender equity in the Australian health and medical research sector.
“For many years, this has been an issue the sector has been grappling with. We’ve known for a very long time that female researchers predominate at the earlier career levels of health and medical research, whether that’s the PhD, Post-Doctoral and early career levels, you will see in most institutes and universities, a majority of women are undertaking that important research,” he said.
“But for years and years now, from the mid-career level onwards, you see the presence of women start to steadily decline to the point where, at the very senior leadership level, women are vastly underrepresented and have been for many years.”
The grants provide a 5-year fellowship and research support for outstanding researchers at all career stages and while setting targets has previously helped address gender inequities in grant funding at junior levels of the scheme, the same success has not been replicated at senior levels where barriers are leading to attrition of women from the research workforce.
The result is that between 2019 and 2021, male applicants received nearly 35% more grants and 67% more total funding (about $95 million extra per year) than women.
“The structural barriers that prevent women from contributing fully and advancing careers in medical research are many,” Minister Butler said.
“A 50:50 funding target for senior researchers will directly tackle this loss of talent and give more women the opportunity to take their research forward for the benefit of us all.”
He explained the NHMRC, led by their CEO Professor Kelso, had undertaken a lengthy consultation to find a way to provide real gender equity at those leadership levels.
“I want to congratulate Professor Kelso for her leadership of this consultation process. I note, it’s got the strong endorsement of research committee of the NHMRC, [and has] received the strong endorsement of the Association of Medical Research Institutes,” Minister Butler said.
“As an example of the degree to which the outcomes and applications are skewed, at the early career, emerging leader level of the Investigator Grants, fully 55% of applications are submitted by women, that rate plummets to just 24% this year, for the most senior, level three leadership grant.”
Professor Kelso explained that the funding outcome disparities are a direct consequence of the attrition of women with seniority as they advance through their careers.
“As a researcher myself for many years, one day I had the experience of looking up from the lab bench, and realising that all my female, many of my female peers have disappeared, where had they gone?” Professor Kelso said.
“And then when I joined NHMRC, I was really shocked to see our own funding data. And seeing that continuing disappearance of female researchers, even today, many years after I went through that process.
“How can we afford to lose so many brilliant women from health and medical research? We as a country, they as individuals have invested hugely in their training and their development as researchers. And we need their unique talents and perspectives, if we’re going to have them work alongside men to achieve the research goals that we need for healthy Australia.”
She said that over the years, NHMRC has paid a lot of attention to the gender disparities in funding outcomes and has achieved a great deal to address the issue, but it has not been enough.
“An Investigator Grant can make all the difference to a researcher’s career. This is one of the reasons that gender equity in this scheme is so important if we are to build a diverse research sector,” Professor Kelso said.
“The changes announced today will provide more encouragement and opportunities for women and non-binary researchers to apply for, and win, these significant grants. With this support, we look forward to seeing better gender diversity at the most senior levels of Australian health and medical research in the years ahead.”