Gender and gatekeeping of excellence in research funding: European perspectives

Access to funding is one of the keys to success in academic careers, both for women and for men, providing essential support for research and publications. Indeed, the role of competitive funding is increasing in many European national settings and success in the competition for research funding is now often used as a measure of scientific excellence at both individual and institutional level. Those who decide on allocation of research funding play thus an important gatekeeping role shaping the research system. In this article, we explore gatekeeping of research funding in Europe from a gender perspective. The article is drawing on the recent EC expert group report The Gender Challenge in Research Funding – Assessing the European National Scenes (EC 2009). The expert group was set up by the European Commission to analyse from a gender perspective research funding landscapes in 33 European countries