Understanding the role of gender and project characteristics in research funding evaluations

Research shows that women are less successful than men in obtaining external funding for research projects. However, other research points to advantages of female leadership and suggests that women are capable of breaking glass ceilings in competitive contexts (e.g., promotions). We bridge these ideas by arguing that although women are disadvantaged in the funding process (e.g., as principal investigators or PIs), there may be advantages of female representation in research projects that compete for funding. We analyze a unique panel dataset based on all call texts and all applications to the “Cooperation” part of the EU FP7, a 2007–2013 EUR 53.2 billion program. Using fixed-effects regressions, we find that projects with high female representation (or with female PIs) receive less favorable evaluations. However, this effect weakens as the relevant projects become more heterogeneous and radical. These findings are robust to a number of alternative specifications.