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Male researchers’ ‘vague’ language more likely to win grants

Grant reviewers favour ‘broad’ words used more often by men, but proposals using those terms don’t produce better research.
  1. Holly Else
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Grant reviewers award lower scores to proposals from women than to those from men, even when they don’t know the gender of the applicant, an analysis of thousands of submissions to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has found1.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01402-4

References

  1. Kolev, J., Fuentes-Medel, Y. and Murray, F. Natl Bureau Econ. Res. Working Paper No. 25759 https://www.nber.org/papers/w25759 (2019)

  2. Reuben, E., Sapienza, P. and Zingales, L. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 4403–4408 (2014).

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  3. Dutt, K. et al. Nature Geosci. 9, 805–808 (2016).

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