Introduction

• The EU COST action “The String Theory Universe” ran from 2013-2017.

• COST actions provide funding for networking via workshops, conferences and exchange visits.

• This action was led by female scientists and one of its aims (beyond scientific excellence) was to support the development of women.

 

Gender workshops

• Three workshops were held exploring “String theory and gender”: Valencia (2015); Paris (2016) and Southampton (2017)

• This talk will report on the outcomes from these meetings and ongoing actions.

• Thanks to Anna Ceresole, Sebastian Fischietti, Mariana Grana, Gabi Honecker, Yolanda Lozano, Marian Lledo, Andy O’Bannon, Silvia Penati, Michela Petrini for collecting data and providing input

 

Diversity and gender

• Diversity: gender, LGBTQ+, disability, ethnicity, socio-economic background, religion, carers…

• Less favoured groups share many issues but some issues are specific to each group.

• Intersectionality is important e.g. white American Harvard educated woman typically within favoured group.

 

Leaky pipeline for women

 

 

Key transition points

• 1. Choice of high school and subjects

• 2. Choice of university undergraduate course

• 3. Entrance into graduate school

• 4. Continuation to postdoctoral research

• 5. Obtaining a long term/tenure track position

• 6. Progression to full professor

• 7. Progression to institute director, group leader etc

 

School, undergraduate and graduate school

• Huge variations between countries: ~15-20% women in UK physics undergraduate programmes cf ~50% in southern European countries.

• Women are more likely to continue in physics in departments where there are more female staff.

• Women are less likely to continue in competitive environments in which students are ranked against each other.

 

PhD -> Postdoc -> Tenure track

• Transitions are directly under the control of the string theory community.

• Is there a leaky pipeline for women working in string theory?

 

Tenure track -> senior positions

• Back to cultural variations: many issues have to be addressed locally, rather than by the string theory community as a whole.

• Conference talks, organising committees, journal editorships and other measures of esteem in our community relevant for promotion.

 

Effecting changes: diversity plans

• Monitor diversity data.

• Analyse causes of issues.

• Implement actions to provide support and improve working conditions.

• Evaluate impact of actions.

• (Carrot and) stick approach: satisfactory diversity plans required by some research councils and governments (UK, IR, NL)

 

 

Effecting change: good practice of other communities

• Many physics/astronomy research communities have well established working groups on gender and diversity.

• Actions include: sessions in major conferences; websites collecting resources; diversity representatives on organising committees; monitoring of gender statistics for fellowship and job applications; mentoring; support for harassment

 

Is diversity a problem?

• In a crowded research field such as string theory, diversity may not be seen as a problem, as jobs are always filled by high quality candidates.

• Reasons to care:

        1. Increasing diversity changes a department’s culture and attracts students.

        2. Increasing diversity generically improves performance.

 

 

Format and outcomes

• Networking between women faculty, postdocs and students

• Exploration of common issues and potential actions

• Input from external researchers from social sciences

 

Gender statistics

• Collected cross-sectional data on gender split of faculty, postdocs and students in France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain, UK and the US.

• Future plans: extend to more countries and collect longitudinal data.

 

Gender statistics

 

Breakdown by country

 

 

Comments on data

• Female faculty percentage in Holland attributable to gender initiatives e.g. competitive tenure track schemes for women only.

• Percentage of women dips at postdoctoral level and then increases at faculty level.

• Percentage of women in hep-th is lower than in physics as a whole e.g. in US ~20% physics PhDs, ~15% physics faculty are female.

 

Need for further data

• Need to collect data from more countries before analysing trends in detail. Some snapshots:

 

Variation by rank: glass ceilings

 

 

Variations by group

 

 

In general, higher percentages of female PhDs and postdocs found in groups with female faculty

 

 

Analysing data

• Reasons for drop at postdoctoral level?

• Reasons for variations by country and group?

• Demographic trends may be useful beyond gender considerations e.g. in Germany faculty have on average 1.7 postdocs but in France they have only 0.3.

 

Other gender data

• Postdoctoral applications - gender breakdown of applications to European groups via Leuven application website is already monitored.

• Representation of women at conferences, in organising committees and in seminar series

• Diversity of journal editors

 

Monitoring data

• Monitoring gender data seems a passive action but it is often very effective. Mea culpa:

      - Almost all personal fellowship applications in our group were from men -> we now proactively invite women to apply.

     - We aim for at least 10% of speakers in our seminar series and workshops to be female.

     - We circulate postdoc and PhD openings via women in strings mailing list and other related networks

 

Committee on gender issues in string theory

• Following the conclusion of the COST project, the aim is to establish a committee working on gender issues in string theory

 

 

Goals of committee

•Monitor and analyse gender data

• Promote and coordinate the “String theory and gender” workshops

• Develop a sustainable web resource collecting data and information on gender issues in string theory. (Following astronomy example.)

• Maintain (and expand?) the Women in Strings mailing list.

    - Announcements of positions, conferences, workshops, fellowship opportunities

    - Networking and support for young researchers

• Promote gender and diversity training in all institutions and for all fellowship panels.

   - Unconscious biases - Biases in recommendation letters

   - Underestimating leadership potential in women - Gender biases in citations Review of literature on women in physics: http://iopscience.iop.org/book/978-1-6817-4277-9.pdf

 

Full talk in pdf here.