Trend analysis of the proportional allocation of funding by gender in Spanish National Research Projects: A study by disciplines and staff positions

Abstract

Given the critical role of research funding in driving knowledge production and promoting gender parity in academia, this study aimed to analyze gender differences in funding allocation over time across different disciplines or areas of knowledge and research staff categories. We analyzed data from 20,843 Spanish grants awarded between 2015 and 2022, matching these records with data on tenured research staff. Considering that in scientific systems, women represent a lower workforce, we analyzed the proportion of grants awarded relative to their presence as associate and full professors. To quantify these differences, we employed proportional gender funding and the women/men ratio. This approach was used to analyze whether the amount of grants awarded was proportional to their presence as tenured staff members. Our findings reveal significant disparities in grant allocation and tenured staff, with women receiving approximately 33% of the grants and representing 43% and 38% of associate and full professors, respectively. This difference was higher in terms of areas of knowledge, with Engineering and Architecture having the lowest women/men ratio and Arts and Humanities having the highest ratio. This pattern was repeated among associate and full professors with pronounced differences in Engineering and Architecture. Despite this, the longitudinal analysis showed that the differences decreased over time, showing a positive trend for both staff categories and across different areas of knowledge. Regarding proportionality, we observed that the proportion of grants awarded to women agreed with their representation as tenured staff, reaching its highest value by 2022. In areas where women received fewer grants and were fewer associate and full professors, such as Engineering and Architecture, the proportion of grants awarded to women was similar to that of men. Although our findings indicate a positive trend favoring women, more action needs to be taken. Future research could explore how grant allocations, productivity, and collaborative roles interact to deepen the understanding of gender dynamics in research funding.