Glass ceiling confirmed in biomedical research

Anyone who has ever said that women have to be twice as good as men to succeed is wrong. In biomedical science they have to be up to four times as good, according to a study from Sweden published last week.

Based on data from Sweden's Medical Research Council-released only after the researchers took legal action under Sweden's freedom of information act-the report shows that successful female applicants for postdoctoral fellowships had published on average two and a half to four times more high impact research than their male counterparts (Nature 1997;387:341-3).

Sweden's Medical Research Council received 114 applicants for postdoctoral fellowships in 1995. Four fellowships were awarded to women and 16 to men. To see if this was because the women had produced less high quality research than the men, Christine Wenneras and Agnes Wold, both from Gothenburg University, examined the scores …