Viewpoint: A challenge to academic health centers and the National Institutes of Health to prevent unintended gender bias in the selection of clinical and translational science award leaders

Abstract

In controlled studies, both men and women preferentially select men over women for leadership positions, even when credentials are identical and despite field studies demonstrating women's equivalent or slightly better leadership effectiveness. The assumption that men will make better leaders than women is attributed to the pervasive existence of unconscious stereotypes that characterize both men and leaders as agentic or action oriented and women as dependent. The Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Roadmap is a novel, prestigious award that will place considerable power in the hands of one principal investigator-conditions that predict activation of bias in favor of selecting male leaders. The authors review research supporting this assertion. To mitigate the impact of this bias and broaden the pool of potential leaders for this transformative initiative, the authors offer the following suggestions. To academic health centers they suggest (1) internal search committees comprised of at least 35% women that establish a priori the desired qualities for the CTSA leader and broadly solicit applicants, (2) explicit specification of the full range of desirable skills of a CTSA leader, and (3) systematic efforts to increase awareness of the negative impact of unconscious gender bias on women's advancement. To the NIH they suggest (1) the new multiple principal investigator rule for the CTSA program, (2) a statement in the request for applications (RFA) encouraging diversity among principal investigators, (3) repetition in the RFA of the public NIH statement of the importance of work life balance for young investigators, and (4) constitution of study sections with at least 35% women.