Kiki Lombarts

The Trump administration is leaving a trail of destruction through American science with its war on 'woke'. The consequences are also being felt in the Netherlands. In a letter to the editor published today in the Volkskrant, signed by 300 scientists, healthcare professionals, and other experts, universities, policymakers, and the government are urged to continue supporting researchers and to safeguard high-quality and inclusive healthcare for everyone. I wholeheartedly added my signature to this letter. You can still show your support by signing the petition.

Today’s Netherlands Medical Journal reports that the path to professorship is still more often successful for male doctors than for their female colleagues. Colleagues from ErasmusMC published this well-underpinned supported research finding regarding gender differences in medical science. The largest explanatory factor (55%) they found was the number of publications. There was no difference between men and women in terms of the number of successful grant applications.

As board member of the Dutch Women Professors, I was asked to reflect on these findings for the Dutch national newspaper Volkskrant in an interview with journalist Erna van Dalen. Lidwien Poorthuis, director of the Dutch Women Professor, was interviewed about the same study for Radio 1, News Weekend. The findings are not new for the Network; in the annual Monitor Female Professors – the report on the representation and progression of female scientists – we have been reading for years about persistent inequality between male and female scientists. Medical faculties currently have just over 30% female professors. This percentage is increasing, but too slowly. While lecture halls and the scientific pipeline are more than filled with women, it is still the men who more frequently move on to higher leadership, decision-making, and culture-defining positions. To achieve the desired equality between men and women more quickly, it is essential to change the appointment system and the dominant masculine culture within the university medical centers (UMCs). The fact is that female department heads are underrepresented in all UMCs (ranging from 14.7% to 42%); the current culture bearers at the department level are mostly men. Professors are typically nominated by the department leadership. Programs such as 'Acknowledgment & Recognition' aim to make this culture – and thus the system – more diverse by, for example, broadening appointment criteria. Not only the grant application success rates and the H-index (publication numbers) of scientists should weigh in the decision, but also other important aspects for the academy, such as teaching efforts, academic duties, societal impact, and good leadership of research teams.