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Sexism in academia is bad for science and a waste of public funding

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Higher education and research institutions are critical to the well-being and success of societies, meaning their financial support is strongly in the public interest. At the same time, value-for-money principles demand that such investment delivers. Unfortunately, these principles are currently violated by one of the biggest sources of public funding inefficiency: sexism.

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Fig. 1: The gradual attrition of women from the academic career path.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany

    Nicole Boivin

  2. School of Social Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Nicole Boivin

  3. Department of Sociology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Susanne Täuber

  4. Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research (AISSR), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Susanne Täuber

  5. Hamburg, Germany

    Ulrike Beisiegel

  6. Institute for Quantum Electronics, Physics Department, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Ursula Keller

  7. Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Science and Technology, Eawag, Dubendorf, Switzerland

    Janet G. Hering

Authors
  1. Nicole Boivin
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  2. Susanne Täuber
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  3. Ulrike Beisiegel
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  4. Ursula Keller
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  5. Janet G. Hering
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nicole Boivin.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Boivin, N., Täuber, S., Beisiegel, U. et al. Sexism in academia is bad for science and a waste of public funding. Nat Rev Mater 9, 1–3 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-023-00624-3

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