Gender Dashboard
As part of Research Ireland’s commitment to improving the representation of Historically Underserved Communities in its portfolio of grants, this Gender Dashboard provides an analysis of gender disaggregated data across a cohort of funding programmes since 2011. It is one of several actions that Research Ireland has undertaken to address and examine the underrepresentation of women in grant funding by enabling an open and transparent analysis of data arising from different programme funding calls.
The analysis aims to expose unintended biases that may exist in Research Ireland’s grant review processes by examining application success rates and funding amounts across different funding programmes by gender (binary). Research Ireland has been collecting applicants’ gender (binary) data since 2011. The gender identifier options for applicants currently extend beyond binary, however, those data are excluded from the analysis due to privacy considerations.
Although the current analysis represents data from STEM (Science Foundation Ireland) applications for funding prior to the establishment of Research Ireland, the Dashboard reflects the success of gendered initiatives implemented by both legacy agencies. The Dashboard supports that there are no apparent biases in Research Ireland’s review process. Specifically, the overall year-on-year success rates for men and women are comparable; this was also evidenced in an independent review undertaken of the IRC Gender Strategy and Action Plan, published in 2022. The data for all Research Ireland programme calls since its establishment will be included in future updates of the Dashboard accounting for the expanded remit of Research Ireland.
The main panel on the Dashboard presents gender (binary) disaggregated data on grant applications and success rates as well as funding amounts. There are options to filter the data by programme categories, individual programmes, years, and applicant role (Lead or Co-applicant). More information about the Dashboard and gender initiatives, the data summary, Research Ireland programme categories and acronyms used in this Dashboard are available on adjacent dashboard tabs which can be accessed by simply clicking on the tab titles at the top.
Highlights from the Dashboard include:
- The overall year-on-year success rates for men and women are comparable which supports that there are no apparent biases in Research Ireland’s review processes.
- The data support the positive impact of gender initiatives introduced into programmes such as the Starting Investigator Research Grant (SIRG), Frontiers for the Future (FFP), and the Research Ireland Pathway programmes, on improving the overall representation of women applicants and grant holders in these programmes.
- The funding analysis supports that there is no apparent disparity between the funding amounts granted to women applicants as compared to men when measured against funding amounts requested.
- The representation of women in programmes designed for researchers at advanced career stages such as Research Professorships, and Research Centres is lower compared to men. More targeted efforts are needed to address the gender gap at advanced career stages.
Research Ireland is committed to undertaking actions that will address these gender gaps and improve the representation of Historically Underserved Communities in its portfolio of grants, as outlined in the External Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2023 – 2028.
The anonymised data presented as part of the Gender Dashboard is available to use free of charge and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) Licence.
Please refer to the data summary tab for a full description of the data fields.
If you have any queries related to this Gender Dashboard, please contact diversity@researchireland.ie.