A/Prof Lisa A. Williams

Women in STEM Ambassador: Insights and Impacts is a virtual event to celebrate the impact and contributions of the Australian Government’s Women in STEM Ambassador initiative towards advancing gender equity and diversity in STEM fields. Hear from experts about the latest insights, tools and programs that can support you to progress greater equity in STEM education and workplaces. Friday 10th May, 2024 1PM AEST

Join us Friday 1pm-4pm AEST
Register: events.peanutproductions.com.au/wisa_impact_...

I'll be a panelist with Australian Research Council Acting CEO Richard Johnson and Australia's Office for Women Executive Director Padma Raman PSM to discuss translating research into policy to advance EDI.

And the full write-up is available as a preprint on the
OSF. The manuscript is currently under peer review.

osf.io/jyq2f

If you'd like to read the research brief, you can download it here:

womeninstem.org.au/wp-content/u...

This work was led by Dr Isabelle Kingsley with research assistance from Amanda Chan and Nicholas Ho. Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith and I round out the research team.

We thank the participating organisations for their contributions to this research.

Future research examining cultural, racial, and other biases will be key to refining equity efforts in the STEM research sector.

Dual-Anonymous Peer Review (DAPR) - NASA Science Introduction NASA’s Science Mission Directorate is strongly committed to ensuring that the review of proposals is performed in an equitable and fair manner. To this end, SMD will evaluate proposals ...

Our research extends existing evidence on the efficacy of anonymisation of the peer review process in promoting equitable outcomes, including NASA's Dual-Anonymous Peer Review System:

science.nasa.gov/researchers/...

By enhancing success rates for early career researchers, anonymisation may create a positive ripple effect in the career pipeline, diversifying the research pool, and supporting the broader issue - retaining and advancing researchers facing barriers in STEM research.

In sum, we found that anonymising applications for scientific equipment can enhance early-career researchers' chances of success. Since no prior gender gap existed in our data, anonymisation wouldn't be expected to impact gendered outcomes. Our results confirm this.

In relation to the analysed data, we use the term 'women' for gender data classified as female and 'men' for gender data classified as male. We acknowledge the limitations of the binarisation of a nonbinary construct.

Gender data provided by these entities included female, male, and indeterminate. Because applications for which the lead investigator gender was classified as indeterminate (n=4) were only present before anonymisation, we could not study the impact of anonymisation on this group.

ATNF applied ‘semi-anonymisation’ by using first initials and surnames for names, removing affiliations, shifting the applicant list to the last page, and arranging it alphabetically to conceal the lead investigator’s identity.

AAT, ACNS, and NCMAS required applicants to anonymise their applications by excluding names and affiliations in the application text, using third-person language, and providing team expertise and background in a separate document.

These entities were:

- Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT)
- Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering (ACNS)
- Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF)
- National Computational Merit Allocation Scheme (NCMAS)

Curious about our data? Our dataset contained 4,582 applications and their outcomes (3,348 from rounds before anonymisation, and 1,231 from rounds after anonymisation was implemented) from four Australian entities that allocate access to specialised scientific equipment.

The infographic shows the success rates by gender of the lead investigator after anonymisation at the four organisations. AAT showed a significant difference from pre-anonymisation with 88% success rate for women and 59% success rate for men. Anonymisation did not signficantly impact the success rates of men and women lead investigators from other organsations (post-anonymisation rates: ACNS: women 63%, men 61%; ATNF: women 89%, men 93%; NCMAS: women 84%, men 76%).

Finding 3: Anonymisation generally maintained the existing gender equity landscape, barring one case of improved success rates for women-led applications and not men-led applications following anonymisation.

An infographic of the scores, success rates, and allocated resources by lead investigator gender prior to anonymisation, separately for the the four organisations. The infographic shows negligible gender differences in all cases. AAT: scores: women 3.6, men 3.8; success rates: women 48%, men 68%; allocated resources: women 80%, men 82%. ACNS: scores: women 7.3, men 7.3; success rates: women 59%, men 58%; allocated resources: women 94%, men 94%. ATNF: scores: women 3.7, men 3.7; success rates: women 86%, men 81%; allocated resources: women 88%, men 84%. NCMAS: scores: women 6.5, men 6.3; success rates: women 86%, men 79%; allocated resources: women 69%, men 70%.

Finding 2: There was a noteworthy absence of gender differences in application scores, success rates and allocated resources before anonymisation at all organisations.

An infographic of the success rates of applicants, by career level, before and after anonymisation. The success rates before anonymisation were 54% for students, 60% for early-career researchers, and 60% for mid- and senior-career researchers. The success rates after anonymisation were 55% for students, 78% for early-career researchers, and 50% for mid- and senior-career researchers.

Here, we highlight three key findings:

Finding 1: Anonymisation boosted success rates for applications led by early career researchers and decreased success rates for more senior-career researchers at one of the organisations, irrespective of the applicant’s gender.

Cover image for the Research Brief: Making Research Applications Anonymous: A boost for early-career researchers while preserving pre-existing gender equity. The cover page includes logos for the Women in STEM Ambassador and UNSW Sydney.

We, the Women in STEM Ambassador team, have released our most recent research findings from a trial across Australia to study the effects of anonymising applications for the use of specialised scientific equipment.

womeninstem.org.au/anonymised-r...

How your money is helping subsidise sexism in academia – and what you can do about it Studies reveal women’s research receives tougher assessment, less funding, fewer prizes and less citation than men’s.

A 2023 study of almost a quarter of a million US academics showed that women are leaving research at much higher rates than men are, and toxic workplaces is the number one reason. What can be done about it? #AcademicChatter #Academia #STEM #sciencejobs theconversation.com/how-your-mon...

1/ New paper! “Gender and retention patterns among U.S. faculty” w/ N Laberge KH Wapman @samzhang AC Morgan M Galesic BK Fosdick @danlarremore @aaronclauset: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A systematic study of gendered rates & reasons for faculty attrition in US academia 🧵

New paper with @ianhussey.bsky.social @taymalsalti.bsky.social @rubenarslan.bsky.social. Most measures are only used once or twice, w/o agreement on gold standards - a serious barrier to cumulative science. that leads to lots of papers without meaningful progress. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

The problem with merit-based appointments? They're not free from gender bias either No matter whether it’s targets or quotas, “merit” is always held up as the stalwart gold standard. But can we judge merit without bias? And is merit really the right measure for ability anyway?

It's getting harder and harder to pick favorites here, but I'll wrap up with this one -- my first foray into sharing the science around gender equity in the public sphere. And it's true: merit doesn't solve bias, gender or otherwise!
theconversation.com/the-problem-...

Inside Out shows well-being isn't just about chasing happiness Pixar’s new film, Inside Out, shows that chasing happiness along won’t necessarily bring well-being, which is a view backed by the latest psychological research.

Who didn't love Inside Out?! Another piece emphasizing that wellbeing is more than just happiness, including a bit round of up research supporting that premise.
theconversation.com/inside-out-s...

More than words: saying 'thank you' does make a difference Most of us were taught that saying “thank you” is simply the polite thing to do. But recent research in social psychology suggests that saying “thank you” goes beyond good manners – it also ...

Thank you, thank you, thank you! This piece covered some new work (at the time) on the benefits of expressing gratitude - since echoed by the work of other affective scientists and social psychs including Sara Algoe and Sonja Lyubomirsky.
theconversation.com/more-than-wo...

Having a sense of meaning in life is good for you – so how do you get one? Don’t pursue happiness as a goal, instead make sure what you do from day to day provides a sense of meaning in life.

Do you feel like what you do matters? In this article, I covered some of the science on meaning in life including research and work by Andrew Steptoe, Laura King, Michael Steger and many more.... theconversation.com/having-a-sen...

What COVID has taught us about sharing our emotions – and why now's a good time to share again It seems like no-one is mentioning the dark days of lockdowns. But it’s worth sharing our feelings as we look to an uncertain future.

This one reviewed some of what we know about how COVID impacted our socio-emotional lives and what we can now do about it. theconversation.com/what-covid-h...

Fewer women receive research grants – but the reasons are more complicated than you'd think Overall, women receive a smaller share of research funding – but it’s not due to how applications are weighed up. The problem starts with the workforce itself.

Sharing some 'oldies but goodies' in this new space. I've written quite a few pieces for @theconversationus.bsky.social in Australia over the years. Here, I'm going to share a few of my faves!

Most recently, this piece covered our research on gender differences in grant outcomes.

Psychology FACULTY! Applicants need YOUR HELP. Make a tangible, positive difference alongside other likeminded psychology faculty like Dr. Dominic Fareri!

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Hi y'all! Excited to be here and build a community of folks interested in science, equity, and kindness. I'm an academic social psychologist, exploring ?s about emotions and social processes and more. I advocate for equity ... probably more than I should. Say 👋, give a follow ↩️, and let's get to it!