Women Succeed in High-Risk NIH Awards Series | Science

Last March, Anna Wexler was nearly 9 months pregnant with her first baby – and the moment could not have been worse. The Postdoctoral Researcher in Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania was a finalist in the prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research Award for Young Scientists. The competition required a 20-minute interview with an examination board in a hotel located in Washington DC, a few kilometers from the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland – just 9 days prior to the scheduled date of the exam. ;delivery.

Wexler and her husband, a doctor, filled their car with provisions for the road south, in case the baby arrived. Five days before the March 12 interview, her contractions began. On the third day of a long, unusually long job, "I had practically given up on going to Washington, DC," she says.

Eventually, the NIH allowed the new sleep-deprived mother to do the web conferencing interview during the panel's lunch break, two days after the birth of her son. And this week, Wexler learned that she was one of the 11 winners of the Early Independence Awards (EIA). The five-year grant of $ 400,000 a year (with overheads) will allow him just one year after graduation. in the social sciences, it has launched its own research group on the social and ethical issues raised by medicine and science for the consumer or on his own.

A few months later, the NIH announced that they would no longer need interviews for EIAs – a change that Wexler wants. "There was no process or emergency plan if someone was actively working during the interview, or for pregnant women who could not fly," she notes. . "If you can not make it equal for everyone, I do not think it's right."

The abandoned interview is a small sign of change among the NIH, who have been pressed to correct the gender imbalance in their high risk, high reward program. The women achieved exceptional results this year in two award categories: half of the 10 Pioneer Awards this year awarded to established researchers were awarded to women. And five of the eleven winners of the EIA award, including Wexler, were women. In recent years, the balance has been skewed in favor of men.

NIH officials insist that nothing has changed with this year's review process. "The numbers are small and vary from year to year," spokeswoman Renate Myles said. However, the agency is looking for ways to equalize opportunities for women. For example, NIHs have discontinued interviewing for EIA scholarships, not because some candidates might be pregnant, but because some studies have suggested that interviews favor men, the agency says.

The high risk, high reward program selects most researchers based on their backgrounds and ideas, rather than a specific research project. After the first winners of the Pioneer Awards in 2004 were all men, women performed better in the coming years, roughly corresponding to the female fraction of the group of candidates (see slide 11 below). But last year, only one of the 12 winners was a woman.

For the other two categories, the New Innovator and Transformative Research awards, the winners generally corresponded to the male / female distinction in the pool of candidates. (This year, 33% of the 58 winners of the Transformation Research Program were women.)

For EIAs, however, there is a clear gender difference between nominations and winners. This year's competition was also criticized as the review panel was chaired by Inder Verma, a former cancer biologist, formerly of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California. Verma was the subject of allegations of sexual misconduct and sexual harassment in that locality and has since resigned.

The 50% and 50% distribution this year between the Pioneer Prize and the EIA Prize shows that women scored disproportionately: men accounted for 72% of the 50 EIA candidates who specified their gender but did not obtain than 55% of the scholarships; 28% of these candidates came from women, who won 45% of the prizes. (Nine candidates did not indicate their gender.) Of the 202 pioneer candidates who reported their sex, 78% were male. (Eleven did not indicate sex.)

The good performance of women this year "is good news," said biologist Carol Greider of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. The review panel members may have been reminded that everyone had implicit biases, which she discusses at her own meetings to determine faculty candidates, she said. "I do not know that's what happened, but I hope that a conscious process can be introduced in future committees, so that it's not a one-off year. but a change of policy and culture. "

An NIH advisory group is currently exploring other ways to increase the number of underrepresented women and minorities who seek and win high-risk, high-reward awards. His recommendations are expected next year.