Nominate individuals from diverse backgrounds for prestigious speaking events, awards & recognition
We are all biased. What can we do? The ALBA Declaration on Equity & Inclusion advises to promote allyship & advocacy, by nominating individuals from diverse backgrounds for prestigious speaking events, awards & recognition. This article provides useful tips & resources on best practices about increasing diversity in nominations.
Issues
It’s a fact that women faculty receive proportionally fewer nominations, awards, and grants than their male counterparts. This disparity may be caused strictly due to gender differences in time spent in academia, institutional prestige, and academic performance. Most societies have lesser expectations of brilliance in women and minorities, based possibly on the dominant group need to keep superiority. The devaluation of contributions from these underrepresented groups means their work is not as often appreciated or celebrated. Speaking at events, awards, and grants shine the spotlight on their contributions and brings visibility to what women and minorities can achieve while inspiring others.
Suggested actions
- Recognize that women and underrepresented minorities can be brilliant and look beyond the traditional and obvious ways to see this.
- Emphasize other qualities that are important such as remarkable contributions overtime, impact on society, or efficient changes implemented.
- Make it a point to seek nominations from women and other underrepresented groups for important events and awards.
- For open nominations, take the time to nominate individuals from under-represented groups.
Resources
References
- Gender Disparities in Awards to Neuroscience Researchers; Mienikoff & Valian, 2019, SciPsych (US)
- Belief that some fields require “brilliance” may keep women out. Bernstein, 2015, Science Magazine (US)
- Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines. Leslie et al., 2015, Science, Princeton (US)
- Adults and children implicitly associate brilliance with men more than women. Storage et al., 2020, JExpSocPsy, U of Denver (US)
- Women who win prizes get less money and prestige. Nature
- Managing internal nomination and peer review processes to reduce bias; Research University of Michigan
List of awards
- The Brain Prize; Lundbeck Foundation (DK)
- Awards in Neuroscience; FENS, Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (EU)
- Various awards in Neuroscience; Society for Neuroscience (US)
- Science achievement awards; National Academy of Sciences (US)
- 12 awards that recognize women in tech; Chief Information Officer (CIO) magazine
- Lists of science and technology awards; Wikipedia (global)
You can find more awards listed in our useful links: www.alba.network/useful-links
You can also find more information on increasing diversity in nominations in our resource article "Gender and Diversity Gap in Prizes & Awards" and on increasing diversity in conference speaker lineups in the ALBA Guidelines for Organizing a Diverse Conference.
