Reply to Volker and Steenbeek: Multiple indicators point toward gender disparities in research funding succes in the Netherlands

Abstract

With interest we read the response of Volker and Steenbeek (1) to van der Lee and Ellemers (2), reporting gender disparities in grant funding success for three cohorts (2010–2013) of early-career (Veni) researchers in the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). Volker and Steenbeek (1) argue that there is no evidence of gender bias because the overall gender effect “borders on significance” (P = 0.045) and would be prone to Simpson’s paradox (3). They present additional data suggesting that overall gender effects may disappear when correcting for alpha inflation or other control variables. The analyses presented by Volker and Steenbeek (1) pertain to other cohorts (2006–2013) and grant schemes and do not address the different evaluation phases or criteria we examined. Instead, they compare overall awarding rates for different subject areas within the social sciences, which were not coded in the data we had access to.