Australia: New Initiatives Offer Jobs, Funding to Women Only

Article here. Excerpt:

'For years, universities and funding organizations have attempted to address women’s underrepresentation among science faculty, whether by removing barriers to recruitment and retention or trying to dispel biases among employers and grant makers. Two newly announced programs take the less common, more contentious approach of affirmative action—offering positions or funding specifically for female investigators.

One program launched in 2017 in Australia, where the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) developed an initiative to fund more research by female scientists. Another is in Germany, where the Max Planck Society created a program to start in 2018 to increase the number of research groups led by women each year.

“The initiatives are very interesting—and bound to be controversial,” MIT biologist Nancy Hopkins writes in an email to The Scientist. “People will say there aren’t enough women who are as good as the great men of the Max Planck Institute. And for sure no one wants the institution to lower its standard—least of all would women want it to do so!”'

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So now, not only will Women's health gobble up 75% of NHMRC grants, but grants will be awarded based on the gender of the applicant. Guess that means more reseach on breast cancer, given women researchers seem to be obsessed with helping people who are just like themselves.

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