Mid-career female academics whose research is disrupted by motherhood or other caring commitments should be eligible for a bespoke grant scheme to help revive their professorial aspirations, some of the UK¡¯s top mathematical bodies have said.

In a??to UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) which criticises its recent draft equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategy as ¡°incomplete and lacking detail¡±, the Royal Statistical Society, the Edinburgh Mathematical Society, the Institute of Mathematics and the London Mathematical Society put forward 10 recommendations which, they say, will enable the funder to ¡°support a more diverse community of mathematicians, statisticians and data scientists¡±.

Among its suggestions is the creation of ¡°protected mid-career acceleration grants¡­for those who have already achieved mid-rank (senior lecturer/associate professor or analogous) but have not applied for funding for some years¡±.

The grants, which would be piloted and run across all funding councils, are required because ¡°mid-career [has been] identified as a particular place that many women¡¯s research careers stall¡±, explains the?.

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¡°Within mathematics there are two places in which we see a sharp fall-off in women¡¯s career advancement ¨C between PhD and postdoc, and then the point just below professorial level and full professorships,¡± Eugenie Hunsicker, senior lecturer in pure mathematics at Loughborough and honorary officer for EDI at the Royal Statistical Society, told?Times Higher Education. She explained that more ¡°re-entry¡± points were needed for academics whose research activities had been ¡°sidetracked or derailed¡± by life events, such as having children or caring for elderly parents.

¡°Grant funding systems still, to some extent, envisage an ideal academic with a certain life trajectory starting with early career success, fellowships and?New Investigator Awards?which lead to various promotions,¡± said Dr Hunsicker. ¡°This expectation that you will take off and enjoy a continuous track of success does not allow for the reality of what happens after the early career stage.¡±

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Without more opportunities to re-engage researchers who achieved some seniority, UK research would ¡°lose expertise¡± and ¡°waste the considerable investment¡± made in these individuals over their careers, said Dr Hunsicker.

While she commended some parts of UKRI¡¯s??¨C which commits to ¡°build and contribute to the evidence base¡± on diversity via evidence reviews and consultation before creating ¡°evidence-led policies and interventions¡± ¨C this plan reflected a ¡°first level¡± approach to improving outcomes, Dr Hunsicker explained.

¡°It¡¯s 30 years since we started thinking about these things and we¡¯ve established beyond doubt that there are issues which mean not everyone can succeed in our sector ¨C funding is a key part of that,¡± she said, noting that even in STEM disciplines dominated by women at undergraduate and doctoral level, such as veterinary science, the vast majority of professors are still men. ¡°A large driver of this imbalance concerns research funding and why more grants don¡¯t go to women,¡± she said.

Instead of asking women to apply for more grants or promote their work more vociferously ¨C which Dr Hunsicker called a ¡°deficit model in which we ask women to be more like men¡± ¨C academia had to move towards a ¡°diversity by design¡± system in which policies sought to intervene more directly, she said. ¡°Even without explicit bias within the system, large disparities are still arising ¨C we need a new approach,¡± she concluded.

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jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com