The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) this month launched a study into the root causes of gender disparity in scientific research. The study, which is being run by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), has allocated between $2 million and $3 million to fund up to eight grants.

“At the lower level, women and men are about equal,” says NIGMS director, Jeremy Berg. “But as you get farther and farther up the ladder, the number of women drop at each stage.”

The issue of disparity is reasonably well documented, and previous studies have identified a number of reasons for this, such as women taking time off to have children. The NIGMS study aims to dig deeper to find out why there are differences between the career paths taken by men and women, says Berg. It will look at possible causes, such as family leave, institutional recruiting practices and the efficacy of programmes aimed at reducing gender discrimination.

The study follows in the wake of a report issued last year by the National Academy of Sciences. Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering made a number of recommendations on how to increase the participation of women in science. These included encouraging department heads at universities to be more accountable for their hiring policies, and for there to be campus programmes to help faculty members care for their children without stepping off the career ladder.

Berg notes that the NIGMS already has several programmes in place to help decrease ethnic disparity in sciences. Funding more research into gender disparity will help the agency see how it can adapt these approaches to women's issues, he says.

Janet Koster, executive director of the Association for Women in Science, has mixed feelings about the NIGMS study. She notes that the gender disparities have already been documented and that many organizations — including the National Academy of Sciences, the National Science Foundation and her own association — have issued recommendations to combat it. “It's great that the NIH has recognized the need to do something about the number of women who are leaving science,” says Koster. “On the other hand, you can question the need for more research.”