Female grant applicants are equally successful when peer reviewers assess the science, but not when they assess the scientist, bioRxiv, 2017-12-13

ABSTRACTBackgroundPrevious research shows that men often receive more research funding than women, but does not provide empirical evidence as to why this occurs. In 2014, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) created a natural experiment by dividing all investigator-initiated funding into two new grant programs one with and one without an explicit review focus on the caliber of the principal investigator.MethodsWe analyzed application success among 23,918 grant applications from 7,093 unique principal investigators in a 5-year natural experiment across all investigator-initiated CIHR grant programs in 2011-2016. We used Generalized Estimating Equations to account for multiple applications by the same applicant and an interaction term between each principal investigator’s self-reported sex and grant programs to compare success rates between male and female applicants under different review criteria.ResultsThe overall grant success rate across all competitions was 15.8%. After adjusting for age and research domain, the predicted probability of funding success in traditional programs was 0.9 percentage points higher for male than for female principal investigators (OR 0.934, 95% CI 0.854-1.022). In the new program focused on the proposed science, the gap was 0.9 percentage points in favour of male principal investigators (OR 0.998, 95% CI 0.794-1.229). In the new program with an explicit review focus on the caliber of the principal investigator, the gap was 4.0 percentage points in favour of male principal investigators (OR 0.705, 95% CI 0.519- 0.960).InterpretationThis study suggests gender gaps in grant funding are attributable to less favourable assessments of women as principal investigators, not differences in assessments of the quality of science led by women. We propose ways for funders to avoid allowing gender bias to influence research funding.FundingThis study was unfunded.

biorxiv scientific-communication-and-education 500+-users 2017

The ancestral animal genetic toolkit revealed by diverse choanoflagellate transcriptomes, bioRxiv, 2017-12-11

AbstractThe changes in gene content that preceded the origin of animals can be reconstructed by comparison with their sister group, the choanoflagellates. However, only two choanoflagellate genomes are currently available, providing poor coverage of their diversity. We sequenced transcriptomes of 19 additional choanoflagellate species to produce a comprehensive reconstruction of the gains and losses that shaped the ancestral animal gene repertoire. We find roughly 1,700 gene families with origins on the animal stem lineage, of which only a core set of 36 are conserved across animals. We find more than 350 gene families that were previously thought to be animal-specific actually evolved before the animal-choanoflagellate divergence, including Notch and Delta, Toll-like receptors, and glycosaminoglycan hydrolases that regulate animal extracellular matrix (ECM). In the choanoflagellate Salpingoeca helianthica, we show that a glycosaminoglycan hydrolase modulates rosette colony size, suggesting a link between ECM regulation and morphogenesis in choanoflagellates and animals.Data AvailabilityRaw sequencing reads NCBI BioProject PRJNA419411 (19 choanoflagellate transcriptomes), PRJNA420352 (S. rosetta polyA selection test)Transcriptome assemblies, annotations, and gene families <jatsext-link xmlnsxlink=httpwww.w3.org1999xlink ext-link-type=uri xlinkhref=httpsdx.doi.org10.6084m9.figshare.5686984>httpsdx.doi.org10.6084m9.figshare.5686984<jatsext-link>Protocols <jatsext-link xmlnsxlink=httpwww.w3.org1999xlink ext-link-type=uri xlinkhref=httpsdx.doi.org10.17504protocols.io.kwscxee>httpsdx.doi.org10.17504protocols.io.kwscxee<jatsext-link>

biorxiv evolutionary-biology 100-200-users 2017

 

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