Facilitating the Success of Women’s Early Career Grants: A Local Solution to a National Problem

Grant funding is essential to the advancement of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields with certain grants viewed as especially prestigious and career formative. The goal of this project was twofold: first to describe the gender demographics of the national winners of two prestigious grants and second, to document the impact of an educational program aimed at improving the success for women in STEM fields in a local setting. In Study 1, we analyzed publicly available national data to document gender gaps in National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) and National Institutes of Health’s K01 awards from 2008-2021. Results showed that, while the ratio of K01 awards favored women, the ratio of men-to-women CAREER awardees favored men. In Study 2, we implemented a grant-writing program for CAREER awards based in self-determination theory at one university and analyzed its impact on funding success. Results comparing before the educational program and after showed that the average annual success rate increased for everyone from 11% to 33%. Women-identified faculty who participated in the program were awarded CAREER funding at a higher rate than would be expected from the number of women eligible to apply or submission rates. While the correlational and observational nature of this study make it impossible to conclude that it was only the educational programs that resulted in the benefits to women’s award success, we encourage other universities to consider adapting the program and enable faculty development around grant success.