Women in Academia: Achieving Our Potential

By Margaret C. Watson

Women in academia earn less and are less likely to be published, cited, funded or promoted compared with male colleagues. Using her own experience, and reflecting a Positive Psychology Approach, Watson puts forward ideas to promote awareness of women in academia to engage with behaviours and activities that contribute to successful academic careers, underpinned by evidence, theory and the experience of 25 international scholars (female and male) from a wide range of disciplines.

Women in Academia provides a rare insight into the inner workings of academia, focussing primarily on what women could do as individuals to enhance their potential. This book makes a positive contribution to the navigation and development of careers for women in academia. It summarizes the valuable combined experience of the author and the 25 scholars. Tangible lessons in career development are presented using a variety of methods including case studies which are insightful and provoke action, as well as ‘additional resources’ and ‘over to you’ sections that support a workbook approach of ‘how to do academia’.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Feb 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9781805147756

Margaret C. Watson

Margaret C. Watson has 30 years’ experience of academic research, is a certified Coach and Mentor, and a registered pharmacist. She holds Professorial positions in the UK and her business, Watson Research and Training Ltd, provides consultancy and training on research and academic practice and personal development.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The importance of women in academia achieving their potential

Diversity is a treasure to be protected and should not be considered a luxury.

Professor Emma Johnston, Dean of Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

(Gewin 2020)

Why does achieving women’s contribution to academia matter so much that I wanted to write and fund a book on the topic, and why should it matter to the wider world? My answer is twofold: equity and efficiency.

Gender equity and equality

Gender equity is the process of being fair to men and women. To ensure fairness, measures must often be put in place to compensate for the historical and social disadvantages that prevent women and men from operating on a level playing field. Equity is a means. Equality is the result (UNESCO 2003). Gender equality in specific disciplines, e.g science and medicine, also has the potential to lead to substantial health, social, and economic gains (Shannon 2019).

The United Nations (UN) identified ‘gender equity’ as the fifth of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a target date of 2030 (UN 2015). The 2021 report from the World Economic Forum (WEF) on the Global Gender Gap (i.e. across all sectors), concluded that the global gap has been impacted so substantially by the Covid-19* pandemic that closing the global gender gap has increased by a generation from 99.5 years to 135.6 years (WEF 2021).

[*This book was written between 2020–22. The early indications suggest that gender disparities will be exacerbated as female academics had less time for academic endeavour due to greater family responsibilities. This impact was noted early in the pandemic through analyses of pre-print servers and research repositories, with reductions in publications and study registrations from female academics, as well as women being less likely to author papers on the topic of Covid-19 (Viglione 2020).]

Gender equity is needed to achieve gender equality (UN 2015) which is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world (UN 2015). In Chapter 2, a summary of evidence is presented regarding current gender inequities and asymmetries in academia.

Diversity in the workforce isn’t simply the right thing to do, it is also the smart thing to do. It is good for business. Companies with diverse executive boards (measured in terms of gender and foreign nationals) achieve higher earnings and return on equity compared with less diverse organisations; they have a competitive advantage (Barta 2012; Hunt 2018). It is also very good for science-related research, with gender diverse teams generating more novel and highly cited publications than homophilous teams, with the performance advantage increasing with greater gender balance (Yang 2022).

There is growing awareness and acknowledgement of the importance of diversity in academia at a national level as evidenced by the UK Government’s recent inquiry into the lack of diversity in STEM subjects, leading to the recommendation of a STEM Diversity Decade of Action (BSC 2021). This is not solely a British problem; the STEM workforce in the US lacks gender and minority ethnic group diversity, with metrics indicating slow, if any, improvement (Woolston 2021).

Iwasaki (2019) discusses diversity in terms of whether it is inherent (i.e. gender, ethnicity) or acquired (i.e. acquired from activities such as working abroad, gaining exposure to different cultures) and suggests that both types of diversity can lead to innovation and success. In her commentary, Professor Iwasaki suggests that: A homogenous team is bad for science, because it is not possible to achieve synergy without heterogeneity among the team members (Iwasaki 2019). Teams with mixed ethnic profiles are associated with highly cited publications and higher impact journals (Freeman & Huang 2014).

Why does diversity lead to enhanced performance? As suggested by Iwasaki (above), heterogeneity amongst members of a laboratory, research group or department – gender, nationality, life experience – brings different insights, perspectives and dimensions to the research that is planned and undertaken. It’s not only research that benefits from a gender-diverse workforce. In terms of teaching, our students (and colleagues) need to see ‘people like them’ during their early academic careers, role models (Chapter 6) who have broken trail, so that they know what is possible, and to avoid the haemorrhage of talent and creativity observed with many disciplines along the infamous ‘leaky pipeline’. Indeed, the growing emphasis on the decolonising of the curriculum in higher education institutions (HEIs) is another example of the need for academics to look outside their sphere of experience and ensure that their teaching reflects and reaches our diverse societies (Arshad 2021). For a more comprehensive summary of the benefits (and challenges) of diversity in academic settings, refer to the publication by Fine 2010.

My academic life

At the time of writing, I had spent around 30 years in academia, starting as a full-time PhD student with a fully funded Fellowship, and latterly holding two consecutive Professorial positions (at different universities), for both of which I was invited to apply i.e. ‘head-hunted’ or ‘talent searched’. My current Professorial post is part time (50%) by my own choice, and I spend the remainder of my time as an Independent Consultant with my company, Watson Research and Training Limited (https://watsonresearchandtraining.co.uk/). I have gratefully received more than ten years of Fellowship funding from the National Health Service (NHS), the Medical Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Health Foundation. My research portfolio (Fellowships and grants) exceeds £3 million, and I have over 110 peer-reviewed publications. My H-index (Scopus) is 32. Until recently, I served on national grant and Fellowship-awarding committees and one editorial board. I have organised and chaired international and national conferences. I have supervised 11 PhD students to successful completion (with five students currently on my books), as well as multiple MSc, BSc and BMedSci students. I have examined PhD candidates nationally and internationally and I have been an external assessor for UK and international university promotions’ applications.

My academic specialty is Health Services Research, with a focus on evidence-based practice, i.e. the synthesis of evidence (data) into a form that can then be disseminated to, and implemented by, the people and organisations for whom it is relevant… so that it derives societal benefit. From history, we know that the mere availability of evidence/facts is often insufficient to achieve change in practice, policy, education, and so on. It took the British Navy over 40 years to act upon the data from the surgeon, James Lind, to introduce Vitamin C-containing food into the diet of British sailors to prevent scurvy (Dunn 1997). Slightly more recently, a ten-year delay arose in the incorporation of prenatal corticosteroids into routine practice (in the UK) to reduce premature birth, despite substantial (overwhelming) evidence of their benefits (WHO 2006). As such, I am aware that the publication of this book alone will not fully resolve the challenges and inequities that exist in academia around the globe; however, it will hopefully begin to raise awareness amongst individuals and institutions of the actions and behaviours required to be effective academics. Indeed, during the writing of this book, I have delivered seminars and workshops to actively disseminate some of the key findings as quickly as possible and to derive feedback on the elements and concepts that are addressed in later chapters.

Coaching, Mentoring and Positive Psychology

I have coached and mentored colleagues, students and friends throughout my career. I have benefited substantially from having people coach and mentor me (see Chapter 6), and it was as a result of my experience with these individuals that I decided to formalise my training as a coach and mentor, to ensure I was adopting an evidence-based approach to this activity.

I use the concept of Positive Psychology (Boniwell 2018, Positive Psychology Program 2018) during my coaching and mentoring sessions (I refer to this as the ‘turning the frown upside down’ approach to life). Positive Psychology focusses upon an individual’s strengths to improve their overall performance. This approach to coaching and mentoring aims to help individuals to use their strengths and abilities to improve their well-being and performance and to reach their goals (Boniwell 2018). This approach is influenced and informed by psychology and was developed in the 1990s (Seligman 2011). I am not a psychologist nor am I a counsellor, so I have included very limited description of the theoretical elements of this approach. Individuals are encouraged to identify and develop their strengths (talents), enhance their self-efficacy and achieve the goals that they have identified and defined. These elements are woven throughout this book and consolidated in Chapter 12.

There are injustices and inequities within academic systems, many of which are being addressed (slowly) but will take time to resolve. Professor Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, neurologist and psychiatrist, reflected that when we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves (Frankl 2004) and as such, there are many behaviours and mindsets that we can adopt which enable us to achieve our potential within the existing academic sphere, and in so doing, achieve societal benefit through the research that we undertake and the students we teach. Professor Frankl also suggested that success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself (Frankl 2004).

Positive Psychology reflects my general attitude to life i.e. appreciating and building upon what I have/know/am. I try to acknowledge what I have in my life and to be grateful for it: people (loved ones, friends, my Support Crew (Chapter 6) i.e. the people in my academic and business life who act as coaches, mentors, champions or sponsors); security (home and homeland); my health; freedom of thought and speech; sufficient income; and a reasonable level of intelligence. I could look at the gaps or inadequacies instead: no garden (but I do have access to beautiful parks and woodland); not as fit or lean as I could/should be (but I do monitor my diet and exercise); not as intellectually gifted as others (but I do have adequate intelligence, a hunger for knowledge and a strong work ethic); a lack of reciprocity from others (but I do remember good old St Ignatius!); not entirely financially secure (but in a much better position than 5/10/15 years ago); and so on. This latter mindset does not serve me well; indeed, even as I was writing about the ‘gaps’ it made me feel rather grumpy and irritated, so I added my reflective compensations (in brackets) to redress the balance.

I like to see and seek the positives and build upon them; to see and seek opportunities and use them, and if they don’t exist, to create them. I am not unaware of the challenges; far from it. I strive to seek solutions to challenges or to adopt a different mindset to deal with them, i.e. I reframe the situation (a common and effective technique used in coaching and mentoring (Cox 2018)). I believe that if we can identify and build upon our strengths and skills this will help us to plan and navigate the likely problems and challenges on our academic journeys. Systemic ‘fixes’ are also required within institutions, organisations and societies (Chapter 13), but their detailed discussion is beyond the remit of this book.

So, this book reflects my personal preference for Positive Psychology: academia for women (and others) can be unequal and unequitable, and this is my contribution to try to improve the situation, one page and one reader at a time.

Why this book and why now?

The idea for this book came to me as a result of a mentoring session with a mid-career female academic (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Case Study: The reason for this book

My mentee had applied for, and been offered, a promoted post at a different university. I had earlier advised her that if she was offered the post, to have a session with me to help her to negotiate a ‘start-up package’* before accepting the post. This is sometimes referred to as ‘the ask’. We duly met and I congratulated her on her job offer. She seemed somewhat subdued about the prospect of negotiating prior to accepting the job. The session went like this:

I proceeded to explain to her that she had two great strengths: one, she was a ‘Wellcome-funded academic’, which was extremely prestigious; and two, she had already been offered the job, so the university really wanted to employ her. Both these facts, I suggested, put her in a very strong position to negotiate. We went on to discuss what she felt would be needed to work effectively in her new post and how to ask for it. Following our session, she successfully negotiated her start-up package, secured everything she wanted and commenced her new post a few months later.

*Alongside salary negotiation for more senior posts, individuals should also negotiate for additional support in their new role, which might include a post-doctoral researcher or PhD student, a consumables’ budget or similar fund; all of which enable the new post-holder to be as effective as possible, as quickly as possible after commencing their new post.

Following this mentoring session, I reflected upon the substantial gradient between myself and the mentee in terms of knowing the academic system, how to work within it, and more importantly, how to present oneself effectively. Initially, I could not understand why my mentee had failed to realise that she was in a position of strength, that she was holding the winning hand of cards. With a little more reflection, however, I acknowledged that my mentee had not yet accrued the same academic experience as me; she had worked in academia for around ten years at the time, and to expect her to know what I knew (often referred to as ‘soft intelligence’) was unrealistic.

It was then my turn to be subdued as I reflected upon the inefficiency of learning the academic ‘ropes’ where one could spend a quarter of a century learning how to operate effectively – and by operate effectively, I mean be able to secure competitive funding to undertake meaningful research (and/or teaching) and to then disseminate and implement the findings of that research so that they achieve societal benefit. And even with around 30 years’ experience, I still felt that I was not operating as effectively as possible. I decided to do something to address this situation.

Initially, I considered seeking input from a handful of colleagues about their reflections on how female academics could achieve their potential. But the researcher within me took over and the educational session expanded into the project now reflected in this book. I searched the internet to identify whether this had all been done before. It hadn’t. What had been done was books from single countries/academic systems/disciplines, or where only the female voice was included; the male voice was seldom, if at all, represented.

I decided to write a book that distilled the knowledge and experience and suggestions of scholars from around the globe, combined with my personal experience and practice, and supplemented by the literature where appropriate.

The scholars

I wanted this book to reflect a fuller range of perspectives, disciplines, and experiences to include voices of other academics from around the world, to increase the relevance and generalisability of the contents to as wide an academic audience as possible. I also wanted to ensure that this book reflected positive role models and was underpinned by evidence and theory where appropriate and available.

The concept of ‘positive deviance’ involves the exploration and achievement of improvement through learning from positive experiences and events (Baxter 2015; Lawton 2014). It is a concept that I’ve used previously within my research about the safe and effective use of medicines. Positive deviants are exemplary individuals, successful teams or organisations. Using this concept, I decided to interview scholars who were positive deviants, which for the purpose of this book I considered to be ‘successful’, collegiate and supportive of female academics.

Success in academia, to me, is undertaking meaningful research to address real-life problems, to improve the health and well-being of individuals and populations; in other words, to achieve societal benefit. In addition, my perception of success is about enabling others to enhance their capabilities and develop their knowledge; there are few things that give me greater satisfaction than a PhD student being awarded their degree or publishing their first peer-reviewed paper. For this book, ‘academic success’ was not defined – it was perceived by the peers who nominated individuals to me as suitable participants for this project. The scholars, hereafter referred to as ‘interviewees’, were not required to hold professorial appointments to be eligible for inclusion. I relied upon personal recommendations and snowball recruitment methods i.e. interviewees suggested others who might be suitable to identify individuals who reflected my requirement of collegiality and were supportive of women in