Professor Catherine Beaudry
Polytechnique Montréal

Q1: A number of factors influence the low representation of women. First, establishing one’s name/career is perceived to clash with the period when women want to have children. Second, the perception of the university as an ivory tower is linked with low socio-economic impact, or the sense that the university is disconnected from society. Third, there is not a critical mass of women in universities to act as role models. Women should represent at least 40% of university professors.

Q2: The focus on bibliometric performance measures needs to be dampened down to the benefit of more appropriate socio-economic impact measurements. Thankfully, several grant awarding bodies are moving in this direction and a greater diversity of research will be funded as a consequence. Finally, training for all peer-review committee members regarding possible biases in the evaluation of articles, grants, etc., needs to be made compulsory. Researchers are not aware that they are perpetuating numerous gender biases.

Source : Women in Science, March 7, 2018