Women’s Advancement and Leadership in the Biomedical ......and preliminary data was presented in...

Women’s Advancement and Leadership in the Biomedical Research Centres of CataloniaThe gender vicious cycle

RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH SERIES

MONOGRAPH SARIS no. 6

AUTHORSMaite Solans1, Paula Adam1,

César Velasco1, Pavel Ovseiko2, Eduard Güell3, Rosie Campbell4 i

Isabelle Vernos5,6 1 Àrea de Recerca, Agència de Qualitat i

Avaluació Sanitàries de Catalunya (AQuAS), Unidad Asociada al CSIC

2 INGENIO (CSIC-UPV)

3 Radcliffe Department of Medicine, University of Oxford

4 Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, King’s College of London

5 ICREA

6 Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and Chair of the CRG Gender Balance

Committee

The SARIS monographs are written for decision-makers, professionals, and non-specialists and aim to analyse topical issues in biomedical research in order to stimulate and foster reflection. The present document is part of the “Responsible Research” series, which addresses the interaction between research and society.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis study was supported by la the Banking Foundation “la Caixa”, and preliminary data was presented in the Summit for Women’s Advancement and Leadership in Health Research celebrated on the 22nd of October 2019 in Girona. Special thanks to Angel Font and Ignasi López Verdaguer for their support. The authors gratefully acknowledge Joan Marsh, Deputy Editor of The Lancet Psychiatry, who provided valuable expertise about the ‘vicious cycle’, as well as Mara Dierssen, Robert Fabregat, Maria Granell, Federica Righi, Marta Segarra, Carmen Vela and Raquel Yotti for providing their knowledge and expertise in the summit. The authors are grateful to the participants of the summit for their valuable comments, and very specially to Azucena Bardají, Nuria Gavaldà, Reyes Grases, Constanza Jacques Aviñó, Emma Torelló and Anna Ribas for their special participation. Thanks go also to all the professionals from research centres who provided and validated data for this monograph. Finally, especial thanks go to Anna Llovet from the SIRECS/UNEIX and Raúl Méndez and Eduard Suñen from Research Marks Analytics.

3Women’s Advancement and Leadership in the Biomedical Research Centres of Catalonia

FOREWORD

In 2018, gender equality became a high priority in the policy agenda of

both the Department of Health of the Government of Catalonia and the

Government of Spain. AQuAS embraced this as an opportunity to take action

in alignment with the Global Call for Action to include gender in research

assessment. In collaboration with the Banking Foundation “la Caixa”, AQuAS

embarked in 2019 on a project with transformative aspirations for gender

equality in science, in line with additional global calls coming from scientific

journals and funding agencies in terms of critically rethinking the how, the

who, the what, and the why, and who in assessment practices that can play

a crucial role in making aspirational changes real.

The present monograph is the first in a series of two in which AQuAS sheds

light to the Catalan health research ecosystem from a gender perspective. The

vision is to give evidence that supports the necessary changes to make our

science a more equalitarian endeavour.

Paula AdamDirector of ResearchAgency for Health Quality and Assessment of Catalonia (AQuAS)

4 RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH SERIESMONOGRAPH SARIS no. 6

FOREWORD 3

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 6

THE GENDER VICIOUS CYCLE 7

The side effect of the vicious cycle 8

‘SHE FIGURES’ IN THE CATALAN BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH CENTRES 11

Women’s advancement in career development 12

Women’s access to research funding 17

Female leadership in decision-making positions 18

Female leadership in scientific publications 22

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS 23

GLOSSARY 24

REFERENCES 25

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Women’s Advancement and Leadership in the Biomedical Research Centres of Catalonia

The gender vicious cycle

RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH SERIES

MONOGRAPH SARIS no. 6

7Women’s Advancement and Leadership in the Biomedical Research Centres of Catalonia6 RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH SERIESMONOGRAPH SARIS no. 6

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Gender is increasingly recognised as a grand challenge

of the scientific enterprise, and many important calls

for action have been issued. One poignant example is

the “Vicious cycle” that disadvantages women in

science presented by the editors of The Lancet Jocalyn

Clark and Richard Horton in February 2019. The

vicious cycle implies that women are less likely to

have leading authorship positions in publications, are

less likely to receive funding in their research, have

less access to the relevant positions and are less

frequently appointed to leadership positions and as a

consequence, all these aspects prevent women’s full

participation and contributions in biomedical research

and inevitably means that women’s opinions are less

likely to be voiced.

The data presented in this monograph pivots around

the gendered data from 19 Catalan biomedical

research centres and attempts to illustrate that the

gender challenge concerns the different issues of the

“vicious cycle”.

Data implies that women are having difficulties in

getting ahead in research careers. Biomedical research

centres have a female-dominated workforce, but a

male-dominated leadership. As careers advance, the

share declines. Finishing doctoral studies appears to

be a turning point for drawing the gender scissors in

women’s career development. However, the Catalan

setting is diverse, so four different patterns can be

observed: equalitarian pattern, equalitarian pattern

except female-dominated bottom, V-shaped male-

dominance pattern and classic scissor pattern. In sum,

women’s advancement in career development needs

major changes in a large number of centres.

Also, regarding access to funding, there is a reduced

access for women to prestigious senior fellowship

schemes and significant differences in awarded

funding by gender. In the Catalan biomedical

centres, women are underrepresented in research

decision-making bodies. Male-leadership in decision-

making bodies is highly dependent on scientific

competitiveness, while female-leadership is rather

related to managerial tasks. Finally, female-led

publications are less prominent in number of

publications. Finally, 25% of the lead publications

include diversity or female leadership in the leading

positions while 75% have only men in the leadership

positions in the first, corresponding or last author.

Further research and discussion are needed to

explore all these phenomena, and mainly to

understand the dynamics and reasons behind it.

There is a need to reflect on how organisational

contexts, cultures and regulatory settings can create

equal opportunities for women’s advancement and

to discuss which actions should be taken to remove

career barriers in competitive contexts like the

Catalan setting.

This document sheds individual data

on the gender scissors and the gender

vicious cycle for the 19 biomedical

research centres of Catalonia


THE GENDER VICIOUS CYCLE

Gender equality is increasingly recognised as a grand

challenge for scientific enterprise by some of the

most authoritative voices in the academic world.

Many academic publications, such as BMC in 2016,

1 reached approximately a quarter of a trillion US

dollars in 2010. However, not all of this investment

is distributed evenly by gender. It follows, arguably,

that scarce research resources may not be optimally

invested (by either not supporting the best science

or by failing to investigate topics that benefit

women and men equitably The Lancet in 20182

and Cell in 20193 put gender equality high on the

agenda. A very recent but highly significant example

has been the clear message of concern about the

male dominance in panels and conferences made

by Dr Francis Collins4, currently the Director of the

National Institutes of Health (NIH) of the United

States. Dr Collins announced that he would not

accept invitations to speak at conferences and

panels where diversity was not considered. The

Lancet’s theme issue on women in science, medicine,

and global health has created a momentum for

change in academic publishing. Other journals

like Cell3 have also showed determination to give

voice to gender equality. Expert male-only panels

are being challenged, and the contents of research

are increasingly being scrutinised according to

whether gender and sex dimensions are addressed

responsibly.

The editors of The Lancet, Jocalyn

Clark and Richard Horton, exposed

in February 2019 the “Vicious

cycle” that disadvantages women

in science

So, what are the issues? How is it possible that

until recently there has been no global awareness

of evident gender inequalities in science? In fact,

this is not new, and the elephant was in the room

already for a long time. According to the Women

in Research Survey 20195 by the society of Spanish

scientists in the United Kingdom (SRUK / CERU):

70% of women believe they do not have the same

opportunities for career progression as men. This

perception most probably was even greater in the

past decades and go beyond the academic and

scientific world. According to the same survey, 40%

of scientific women in Spain perceive that research

is an extremely competitive environment and this is a

too big obstacle for them. The fact is that Spain offers

one of the most adverse environments for scientific

women. The 2019 Global Talent Competitiveness

Index,6 a global benchmark of countries for issues

related to talent, competitiveness and the future

of work, includes gender equality as an analysis

category. The figures for Spain are alarming: on

leadership opportunities for women, Spain ranks

112 out of 125, being the worst mark among the

hundred analysed indicators. In addition, Spain ranks

very low in equal salaries for both genders (129 out

of 149). Furthermore, motherhood generates a glass

ceiling that hinders career advancement of women

even in countries extremely generous with family-

friendly policies and support.7

One convincing explanation on the barriers for

women’s advancement in biomedical research is the

so-called “vicious cycle“ by The Lancet8. Women

are less likely to receive funding in their research,

making it more difficult for them to access the most

9Women’s Advancement and Leadership in the Biomedical Research Centres of Catalonia8 RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH SERIESMONOGRAPH SARIS no. 6 9Women’s Advancement and Leadership in the Biomedical Research Centres of Catalonia8 RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH SERIESMONOGRAPH SARIS no. 6

relevant positions, they receive fewer invitations to

conferences or peer review panels, they establish

less ties with other actors and as a consequence

publish in less relevant authorship positions in the

publications. Therefore, this implies poorer ratings

in curriculum evaluations, returning to the starting

point: less funding, and the circle starts again.

Overall, leadership opportunities

for women in Spain rank 112 out

of 125 countries

THE SIDE EFFECT OF THE VICIOUS CYCLE

The “vicious cycle” has an impact on the scientific

results. The consequences go beyond women’s career

advancement. A recent large study examined 1.5

million medical research papers between 2008-2015,

and found a robust link between women’s authorship

and the likelihood of a study including gender and

sex analysis: if a woman is among the authors,

it is 30% more likely that the research includes

differences per sex and gender.9

In 2010, an editorial in Nature10 highlighted the need

for including the gender perspective in the research

agenda. Specifically, the editorial pointed: “medicine

as it is currently applied to women is less evidence-

based than that being applied to men.” Moreover, it

continued: “biomedical research continues to use

many more male subjects than female in both

animal studies and human clinical trials. The

unintended effect is to short-change women’s

health care.” Gender bias in biomedicine, from basic

to translational has been identified in a number of

studies.9,11–13

The purpose of gender-oriented research is to

promote rigorous science that considers sex and

gender, and therefore has the potential to expand

our understanding of health determinants for

all people. Sex and gender are multidimensional

concepts, which means that any given individual

is affected by multiple factors, including genetics,

physiological characteristics, physical characteristics,

gender identity, gender relations, and institutional

gender.14 Given the complexity of understanding the

effects of gender and health, the intersection with

social sciences and other knowledge fields becomes

necessary.

There are several initiatives to encourage relevant

research for women, ranging from guidelines for

gendered research15 to specific research programmes

to cover gendered knowledge gaps. More recently,

governments and research agencies are adopting

legal frameworks and plans in order to implement

those initiatives.

9Women’s Advancement and Leadership in the Biomedical Research Centres of Catalonia8 RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH SERIESMONOGRAPH SARIS no. 6 9Women’s Advancement and Leadership in the Biomedical Research Centres of Catalonia8 RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH SERIESMONOGRAPH SARIS no. 6

The ‘“vicious cycle” of women’s advancement (from Clark J et al. The Lancet 2019, 393(10171):508-10)8

If we go by parts, women’s advancement and career

development is probably the aspect of the vicious

cycle where evidence is crystal-clear. Indicators, such

as the Glass Ceiling Index (GCI), can measure vertical

segregation impact. The GCI is a relative index used

in the reports produced by the European Commission

“She Figures” on research ecosystem.16 A GCI of one

indicates there is no difference between women and

men in terms of their chances of being promoted,

and a GCI score of more than one indicates the

presence of a glass ceiling effect. At the EU level,

the GCI stood at 1.64 in 2016, 0.04 points lower

than in 2013. In all countries for which data were

available for 2016, the GCI was higher than 1.00,

indicating that women face greater difficulties than

men do in advancing to the highest research and

academic posts. Although Spain is not included in

this benchmark, there is similar evidence for medical

positions in Catalonia based on data from Hospital

Clínic of Barcelona.17 This phenomenon is known

as the “leaking pipeline”.Women tend to develop

careers later in life, and are more affected than men

by maternity and paternity leave policies. Gendered

behaviours implies that women feel discouraged in

advancing their careers or remaining in the field of

research.18

In science, women are less likely

to receive funding for their

research, they receive fewer

invitations to conferences or peer

review panels

In terms of access to research funding, gender

bias remains a disputed issue. A number of studies

show unequal access between male and female

peers, even in contexts where women completing

undergraduate and graduate training are more

numerous than men.19 The unequal access to funds

is called Mathilda effect, and can be interpreted as a

gendered version of the Mathew effect, “those who

have more will be given more”, usually interpreted


in regards to the type of science that tends to be

more successful in competitions for funding seems

to have a gender. The Mathilda effect20 is named

after the 19th century author and activist Matilda

Joslyn Gage, and highlights the historical tendency

for women’s work to be systematically omitted

and a lack of recognition. A study suggested that

female early career researchers receive significantly

less start-up support from their institutions, and as a

consequence, it would be more difficult for them to

access future research funding.21 Of course, success

rates in grant applications by gender vary significantly

according to the characteristics of the programme,

the socioeconomic context. In the case of Catalonia,

the research programme of the Department of

Health of the Government of Catalonia, called

PERIS, has been funding research and talent for

three years (2017-2019). This programme has a

broad variety of sub programmes ranging from

pre-doctoral to post-doctoral grants, projects and

large programmes. A preliminary analysis shows

inconclusive results since simple success rates

vary broadly from one programme edition to the

next. The solid fact though is only 32% of funded

principal investigators were women.22 Witteman

and colleagues’19 recommended the funders to use

project-based instead of people-based grant review

to guide research investments in order to eliminate

the influence of individual or systemic bias.

Visibility in conferences and expert panels is also

important for career development. This is why the

NIH is officially committed to end “manels” – all-

male speaking panels - in the light of The Lancet

and other calls. Similarly, the European Commission,

the NIH and many other funding agencies (i.e.

National Institutes of Health Research from the UK,

EMBO from Germany) are currently committed to

guarantee gender equality in peer review panels

where funding decisions and scientific opportunities

are addressed. However, in one study developed

in universities, they showed differences with the

perception of excellence and their application in

hiring and promotion processes, so constructions of

excellence that not involve gender ‘misrecognition’

should be developed.23

One crucial element for career development in the

scientific system is authorships in publications.

This is the keystone of advancement in scientific

careers. Being corresponding, first or last author in

original articles is the key of any scientific evaluation

system. Indistinctively of whether it uses the impact-

factor, deciles or quartiles of the journals or not,

although evaluation systems that give more weight

to the mission and context of the publications (as

suggested by the Leiden Manifesto for journals and

the Declaration of San Francisco, DORA, for funding

agencies) are certainly less gender-punitive. In the

area of oncology, the differences are significant.24

In the Cancer Journal for Clinicians, 54.1% first

authors are female whereas the percentage goes

down to 25% as last authors. In Nature Reviews

Cancer, 61.2% first authors are female but only

28.1% are last authors25.

Clark and Horton illustrate the patterns described

above with a “cycle”. Nevertheless, in some cases

one might argue that there is a vicious “circle”, rather

than a “cycle”, that traps women below the glass

ceiling. The consequence is the small improvement

over time. A larger number of women in the first

academic stages of scientific individual journeys do

not correspond to the higher presence of women in

leadership positions. All the aspects mentioned above

prevent women’s full participation and contribution

Women are less likely

to occupy relevant authorship

positions in publications


in biomedical research, representing an unacceptable

masking of women’s contribution to research. The

scarcity of women in leadership positions inevitably

means that women’s opinions are less likely to be

voiced, and as a consequence may lead to biased

decision-making. Implicit gender bias in performance

assessment or gender stereotypes, for example,

can influence women’s career advancement and

development.16 Path dependency and implicit biases

are argued to be the bottom line of a system that has

been historically male-driven.26 The notion of path

dependency, which originates in political science,

suggest that current actions depend on existing and

past experiences and decisions. 27 Path dependency in

gender bias applies to institutions, policy applications,

practices, beliefs and written or unwritten rules of

behaviour that structure modern science and society

and may explain the persistence of a glass-ceiling

effect in science. These are often influenced by both

conscious and unconscious gender bias.

‘SHE FIGURES’ IN THE CATALAN BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH CENTRES

The accountability tool of the Department of

Health for the 19 biomedical research centres is

the Outcomes Scoreboard or “Central de Resultats

de Recerca”, which publishes individual data on

resources, transfer and outcomes every two years.

The biomedical research centres included in the

outcomes scoreboard are:

Healthcare-based biomedical research centres Other biomedical research centres

IDIAP Jordi Gol: Institute for Research in Primary Care

CMRB: Center of Regenerative Medicine of Barcelona

IDIBAPS: August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute CRG: Centre for Genomic Regulation

IDIBELL: IBellvitge Biomedical Research Institute IBEC: Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia

IDIBGI: Girona Biomedical Research Institute

ICC: Catalan Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences

IGTP: “Germans Trias i Pujol” Health Sciences Research Institute

IJC: Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute

IRSantPau: Sant Pau Biomedical Research Institute IRB: Institute for Research in Biomedicine

IISPV: Pere Virgili Health Research Institute IRSICAIXA: IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute

IMIM: Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute ISGLOBAL: Barcelona Institute for Global Health

IRBLleida: Biomedical Research Institute of Lleida

VHIO: Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology

VHIR: Vall d’Hebron Research Institute

The following chapter pivots around the gendered data from 2017-2018 and attempts to illustrate the “vicious

cycle” described by Jocalyn Clark and Richard Horton.


Indicators of the “vicious cycle” of women’s advancement in the Catalan biomedical research centres

WOMEN’S ADVANCEMENT IN CAREER DEVELOPMENT

investigators and group leaders. Aggregated figures

for the 19 institutes with 8,380 people (head counts,

55% were women) by gender shows a crystal-clear

scissor from 2014 to 2017. Scientific workforce is

74% female-dominated in the early ranks of the

professional categories (technical assistants) not

changing through the four analysed years. The

percentage is slightly lower for trainees (doctoral

candidates), reaching round equality (50%) among

doctoral researchers. It is right after the training

track that the shares switch into an increasingly

male-dominated workforce, although the total

numbers are of course smaller. Finishing doctoral

The share of women

is higher in the early stages

of scientific careers. The turning

point is the end of the doctoral

studies. Leadership positions are

dominated by men

The outcomes scoreboard tool for the Catalan

research system groups the scientific workforce

into five categories: technical assistant, trainees

(doctoral candidates), doctoral researcher, principal


studies seems to be the turning point, although in

total the numbers of women who have completed

a doctorate program and started a research career

has increased significantly in recent years. The

improvement of female under-representation for the

post-doctoral positions is nevertheless insufficient

The Gender Scissors of Catalan biomedical research centres, 2014-2017

the denominators are too low. Individual figures

from 2017 show an overall share of women around

50% of the workforce in every institute (except ICCC

and VHIO). Again, the scissors diagrams illustrate

the dimension of the inequalities in many centres,

although there are few exceptions. Individual figures

show four different patterns for women’s career

advancement in the centres:

1. Equalitarian (4% of the total workforce):

centres where gender differences are within the

equality stripe of 40-60 for all categories and the

share of women is higher. This is the case with

Are there any significant differences between

centres? Can we identify patterns in the development

of the workforce through the professional categories

by gender? The disadvantage of disaggregated data

by centre is that, at least for the leadership positions,

considering the overall figures of feminisation of the

biomedical science workforce in Catalonia. That is to

say, the latest data collected for 2017 shows a slight

opening of the scissors but the magnitude of the

imbalance is still far from a gender-equality scenario

marked by the equality stripe of 40% to 60%.

More than 60% of the workforce

is placed in centers with a classical

gender scissor shape -usually

larger centers


IDIAPJGol, a centre for primary care research and

female-dominant in all categories and the IJC, a

research centre devoted exclusively to leukaemia

and other malignant blood diseases.

2. Equalitarian except female-dominated

bottom (19% of the workforce): centres where

gender inequalities are present at the bottom of

the professional scale but reach the equality stripe

among trainee researchers (doctoral candidates)

or PhD/doctoral researchers: IISPV, IRBLleida,

VHIO, CMRB, and ISGLOBAL.

3. Classic scissors (63% of the workforce): In

these centres, the lower categories are unequal

beyond 80 to 20 % differences, the scissor cutting

point is at the transition from doctoral researcher

to principal investigator and the upper leading

categories reach inequalities beyond 20% to

80%. This is the case of a great number of the

hospital-based centres: IDIBAPS, IDIBELL, IGTP,

IMIM, IDIBGI, IRSantPau, VHIR and IRSICaixa.

4. V-shaped male-dominance (14% of the

workforce): these centres are within the equality

stripe for the bottom positions but the differences

reach inequality levels for the doctoral researchers

category (CRG) or the principal investigators (IRB,

and IBEC).

There is one exception to this four rules related

to the ICCC (currently associated to IRSantPau)

where women are in greater proportions in all the

categories. In this centre, women represent 76% of

the employees.

Gender scissors in hospital-based biomedical research centres (percent of total), 2017

T/A: Technician/Assistant; TR: Trainee researcher (doctoral candidates); pHD / Doctoral researcher; PI: Principal investigator; GL: Group leader


T/A: Technician/Assistant; TR: Trainee researcher (doctoral candidates); pHD / Doctoral researcher; PI: Principal investigator; GL: Group leader

Gender scissors in hospital-based biomedical research centres, 2017 (continuation)

VHIO: n=398; 70% women


T/A: Technician /Assistant; TR: Trainee researcher (doctoral candidates); pHD / Doctoral researcher; PI: Principal investigator; GL: Group leader

Gender scissors in other biomedical research centres, 2017


In conclusion, biomedical research centres have

a female-dominated workforce directly related to

research (55%) but a male dominated leadership.

One might argue that the 23% of the workforce

that work in equalitarian environments are in

comparatively less competitive environment (outside

Barcelona, or small centres). This is consistent with

the results of the Women in Research Survey (4),

that revealed that 40% of scientific women in Spain

remark that research is an extremely competitive

environment perceived as too big of an obstacle.

The gender scissors presented in this monograph are

based on professional categories and do not reflect

pay differences related to real work.

WOMEN’S ACCESS TO RESEARCH FUNDING

One of the most prestigious human capital

fellowships in Catalonia are the ICREA grants (Catalan

Institution for Research and Advanced Studies).

ICREA fellowships are extremely competitive, aimed

at scientists with an outstanding international

research record and leadership track record, and a

strong focus on publications track. Results flagged

up strong gender differences among the recipents of

this fellowship. In 2017, there were 59 new fellows

within the 19 research centres, including only 11

females (19%). The following chart presents the

share of ICREA grants by gender in 14 biomedical

research centres. Only two centres have a significant

number of female ICREA fellows (CRG and IRB). Yet,

five centres do not have any.

Number of ICREA grantees of 14 biomedical research centres*, 2017

*Those centres that are not in the figure do not have any ICREA fellowship

An example of female difficulties

for carrier advancement is the

ICREA felowships

Another level of evaluation of the outcome of

research is the average level of funding per principal

investigator, defined as the proportion between the

amount of funding obtained and the number of

principal investigators. This average can be calculated

separately for proposals whose principal investigator

is male or female. The indicator shows a diverse

situation in the different centres. On average, the

amount of money obtained per principal investigator

was higher or equalitarian for women led-projects

in a few centres: ICC, ISGLOBAL, IISPV and VHIR.

The opposite was observed for a larger number of

centres. Gender disparities in research funding were

also found in the average amount granted, which was

lower for women-led projects (€72,423.77 versus


€125,065.39; F statistic <0.005). Nevertheless, we

should be cautious about considering that men get

more funding than women without considering the

funding success rates, or the number of principal

investigators by gender that submit an application

to competitive calls. Our results could fail to capture

the overall research success of female principal

investigators.

FEMALE LEADERSHIP IN DECISION-MAKING POSITIONS

Lack of female-leadership in

decision-making bodies is

highly dependent on scientific

competitiveness

Decision-making and leadership in biomedical

research centres has been divided in three hierarchical

levels, following the classification used in previous

studies based on an international benchmark of

large hospital-based structures.28 The classification

includes three levels and the data were gathered for

2018: the ‘top level’ includes the directors/CEO and

the external scientific committee, the ‘middle level’

refers to the internal scientific committee and the

coordinators of the scientific areas. Finally, the ‘lower

level’ is related to group leaders, platform coordinators

and managing services managers. The positions that

require (at least in the Catalan and Spanish research

system) a very highly competitive scientific skills are

the members of the direction committee, external

scientific committee, coordinators of scientific

areas and group leaders. The positions that require

managerial leadership skills and therefore are less

dependent on scientific curricula are: management

committee, internal scientific committee, platform

coordinators and service managers. Male leadership

in directive and management responsibilities

is therefore highly dependent on scientific

competitiveness. Female-leadership is rather

related to managerial tasks.

Average amount of competitive funding per principal investigators by gender, 2017*

*The amounts do not include institutional competitve funding obtained


Gender differences in scientific and managing positions and dependence from publication-record merits, 2018

While the overall share of women in the different

directing and leadership positions seems to be

related to the dependence on scientific records

of these positions, differences between centres

are significant. While there are centres with a

clear gender dominance (IJC for men and CMRB

for women) or equalitarian (ISGLOBAL) across all

positions, the vast majority have a male dominance

in the lower, middle and higher level, especially in

the positions more dependent on the scientific

records of the researcher.


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FEMALE LEADERSHIP IN SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS

Becoming principal investigator (PI) is an important

milestone in scientific carriers. In that sense, the

Catalan biomedical and health research centers

present, in average, an equalitarian scenario with

44% of PI being women. The analysis of gender

in scientific publications’ leading positions shows

however a less equalitarian landscape. In a list

of authorship names, let us consider ‘leading

positions’ the first author, the corresponding author

and/or the last author. The following chart shows

an analysis of the publications that are led by

researchers of the centers. Leadership of scientific

publications includes the following positions in

the list of authors: fist author, last author and / or

corresponding author. The number of “female-led

publications” includes publications where at least

one of the three positions is occupied by a woman.

This is compared with “male-only” publications,

which is the number of publications where the three

positions are occupied by men. In fact, the opposite

to female-led publications are publications that are

led only by men. The chart shows that female-led

publications represent between 20% to 30% of the

total number of publications lead by authors of the

centers (25% is the average). That is to say, 75% of

the publications that are lead by researchers of the

centers include only men in the leadership positions.

Gender differences in leadership of publications

Only in 25% of the lead

publications include diversity

or female leadership in

the leading positions


FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

This document shows data for the Catalan health

research ecosystem that confirms the vicious cycle

described by The Lancet. In particular, inequalities

are shown in relation to:

– Career advancement and development after PhD

– Relevant positions of publications authorship

– Access to competitive funding (especially

prestigious fellowships)

– Decision-making positions that are highly

dependent on publication records (male-

dominated)

– Managerial decision-making positions (female

dominated)

While there is a wide range of differences across

the 19 analysed centres, these differences suggest

once again that research cannot reach its full

potential unless it can benefit from the talents of all.

Data suggests that comparatively less competitive

environments (outside Barcelona, or small centres)

tend to be more equalitarian. The differences

between genders will not simply diminish over time,

as the underlying factors of the vicious cycle reinforce

each other. There is evidence suggesting the need

to take actions to break the glass ceiling that limits

women’s opportunities and gender equality policies

remain important to discontinue the vicious cycle.

Further research and discussion are needed to explore

all these phenomena, and mainly to understand the

dynamics and reasons behind it, including research

on organisational contexts, cultures and regulatory

settings as means to favour equal opportunities for

women’s career advancement.

Nominal data from the 19 biomedical

research centres shows a clear-cut pattern

of a vicious cycle that difficults cientific

women’s advancement and leadership, as

described in the literature as the ‘gender

vicious cycle’


GLOSSARY

Research centre: these are institutions where

research activities are carried out. Healthcare-

based biomedical research centres differ from

other biomedical research centres because they are

associated with a hospital or primary care centre.

This potentiates the dual role of healthcare centres

as research centres.

Technician / Assistant: personnel, with different

degrees of qualification, who participate and can

undertake scientific and technical tasks, laboratory

tasks, office tasks or secretarial tasks, who participate

in research projects or is directly associated .

Trainee researcher (doctoral candidates):

researchers that do research under supervision in

the research centre and are in the process of getting

their doctorate degree.

Equality stripe: range of values that represent an

equal state or standard (40%-60%).

Group leader: researcher leading his/her research

area or field.

Leading author of the publication: authors that

are located in the first, last or corresponding author

position in a publication.

Female-led publications mean that at least one

woman is in one of these positions

Only-male leadership in publications represent

those publications where leadership positions are

occupied only by men.

PhD / Doctoral researcher: researchers that

hold a PhD or equivalent level of experience and

competence. They can have developed, or not, some

level of independence.

Principal investigator: researches that are leading

at least one research grant the same year of the

evaluation.


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This study was supported by

la Fundació Bancària “la Caixa”

Publisher: Agència de Qualitat i Avaluació Sanitàries de Catalunya (AQuAS)/Agency for Health Quality and Assessment of Catalonia (AQuAS). Departament de Salut/Catalan Ministry of Health, Generalitat de Catalunya/Government of Catalonia

First issue: Barcelona, febrer 2020

Designer: Joana López-Corduente

Portrait illustration:

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