The influence of the applicants' gender on the modeling of a peer review process by using latent Markov models

In the grant peer review process we can distinguish various evaluation stages in which assessors judge applications on a rating scale. Bornmann & al. [2008] show that latent Markov models offer a fundamentally good opportunity to model statistically peer review processes. The main objective of this short communication is to test the influence of the applicants' gender on the modeling of a peer review process by using latent Markov models. We found differences in transition probabilities from one stage to the other for applications for a doctoral fellowship submitted by male and female applicant

Peer Review Practices

Peer Review (PRev) is among the oldest certification practices in science and was designed to prevent poor research from taking place. There is overall agreement that PRev is the most solid method for the evaluation of scientific quality. Since PRev spans the boundaries of several societal communities, science and policy, research and practice, academia and bureaucracy, public and private, the purposes and meaning of this process may be understood differently across the communities. In Europe, internationally competitive research activities take place in large superstructures as well as in small, insufficiently funded university departments; research can be publicly or privately funded; the purpose may be applied research often with a focus on the needs of regional industry, or purely ‘blue-sky’ research. In current report we focused mainly in on PRev of grant applications, the analysis has been carried out on the basis of PRev related literature analysis (Thomson Reuters, Union Library Catalogues, Google Scholar, and reports of selected research funding organisations)

The influence of the applicants' gender on the modeling of a peer review process by using latent Markov models

ISSN:0138-9130ISSN:1588-286

Gender, Excellence and Academic Research Funding : A quantitative study of the relationship between gender and excellence in Norwegian research funding programmes

Master's thesis Public Policy and Management ME502 - University of Agder 2017This thesis investigates the relationship between excellence and gender in academic research funding. Previous research conducted in Scandinavia has shown that excellence efforts might be damaging for gender equality. I reassess this hypothesis by comparing the application behaviour and successfulness in obtaining research funding of women and men across two highly competitive funding schemes in Norway: one that explicitly stresses excellence in the programme title (the Centre of Excellence programme) and one that does not (the Independent Projects programme). Grounded in organisation theory, I hypothesis that organisational factors, such as organisational learning cumulating over time affects how men and women respond to organisational stimuli, such as excellence. My main findings suggest women are generally less likely to apply as centre leaders in the Centre of Excellence scheme, even when adjusting for the composition of the pool of potential applicants based on researchers’ academic rank. However, women are as likely as men to apply in more recent calls (given the number of potential applicants). Comparing success rates for men and women, the results show that women outperform men in both funding programmes, but this difference is generally substantially larger in the Centre of Excellence scheme. This implies that there may be a self-selection effect at play among women when stressing excellence in research funding. However, after conducting logistic regression, there seem to be no statistically significant covariation between gender and being granted or not