NSF finds gender inclusion benefit within programs

In a report of FY 2011-2016 data, the National Science Foundation finds that rate of female participants in its currently-funded Engineering Research Centers (ERCs) may be higher than for overall engineering programs. Specifically, participation among female faculty is better by about seven percent, by about 15 percent among female undergraduates, and a more modest 1-2 percent increase among doctorate students. This seems to be a significant gain in a field in which male Ph.D.-holders outnumber women 6:1 (per NSF data for 2015).

The findings for female participation come as policy and program leaders at NSF and the National Institutes of Health are expressing concern about how their institutions are affecting a field with long-recognized gender disparities.

The topic of gender parity was broached during a session on the future of federal R&D at SSTI’s 2017 Annual Conference. Barry Johnson, a director within NSF, reported that ERCs have been required to submit an inclusion plan with their applications, which may be a contributing factor in their relative success.

Inclusion is also a target for I-Corps, and Johnson stated that 40 percent of the program’s teams have at least one woman. As an approximate benchmark of this performance, just 16 percent of seed-funded startups between 2012 and 2017 had at least one female founder.

During the same conference session, Jodi Black with NIH shared the agency’s performance for SBIR funding of women-owned small businesses.[*] NIH has seen only about 12 percent of its application pool for Fast Track, Phase I and II awards from these businesses and has made awards at a nearly equivalent rate and size.

Any comparison of long-term STEM doctorate or employment data will tell a clear story of improving gender parity, but hoping for time alone to resolve all issues is a poor approach for publicly-funded policies. The gains that are apparently being made by ERC and other initiatives should be a signal for all innovation programs to consider how to actively encourage inclusion strategies among grantees and, more importantly, track, share and build upon any progress.