Dr. Ruth Freeman:

We have a gender strategy in SFI to try to rectify that issue. We need to do a number of things. We need to look at the overall research career and the stability and instability therein, which we know have a particular impact on those with caring responsibilities. There is, therefore, the broad research career.

In terms of the processes we use by which people are promoted and get research funding, we are looking at a number of interventions in that regard to try to level the playing field. We know that women are not peer reviewed as favourably as their male counterparts. Therefore, to redress that balance, when we have two applicants with equal scores and only enough funding for one of them, we will give preference to the applicant who is a woman. We have a number of interventions we are implementing to try to redress those imbalances. The stability of the career track is a really critical one.