Wellcome collects data on female researchers

Four thousand academics across the country will soon get questionnaires in an attempt to find out why more women do not seek research grants. Replies will form part of a study by the Wellcome Trust. After a 1997 paper in Nature showed bias against female medical researchers in Sweden, the UK Medical Research Council investigated its grant awarding system. It found no sex bias in the distribution although considerably fewer women than expected applied for funding. The Wellcome survey will try to discover why.