Women in science: Marta Pacia and Aleksandra Rutkowska

Today, we discuss equal opportunities for men and women in science with Dr inż. Marta Pacia from the Jagiellonian Centre for Drug Development and Dr Aleksandra Rutkowska from the Brain Disease Centre at the Medical University of Gdańsk, winners of the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science awards.

The International Awards L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science are designed to support talented women scientists involved in life sciences research. The Polish edition is part of the global For Women in Science programme organised in more than 100 countries. Over the past 20 years in Poland, the jury has honoured 123 women at different career levels: MSc students, PhD candidates and pre-habilitation researchers. In the last iteration, concluded in November, the winners were Natalia Sauer, Angelika Andrzejewicz-Romanowska, Elżbieta Wątor, Marta Pacia, Aleksandra Rutkowska and Magdalena Zdrowowicz-Żamojć. They have all conducted research funded by the NCN.

Marta Pacia, photo: LOreal-UNESCO For Women and Science Dr inż. Marta Pacia works at the Jagiellonian Centre for Drug Development at the Jagiellonian University. She has completed four NCN-funded projects. Her research is interdisciplinary in scope and centres on the new aspects of lipid droplets and their contribution to endothelial dysfunction in the context of vascular inflammation in cardiovascular disease. “I would like my research findings to find practical applications in endothelial biomedicine. This is very challenging because the results of any single study in this field are usually just a piece in a larger jigsaw puzzle, and only the whole can have an appreciable impact on contemporary science”, she says. Dr Aleksandra Rutkowska works at the Brain Disease Centre of the Medical University of Gdańsk. She has executed three NCN projects. Her research focuses on the brain, and in particular on brain processes and repair ability. “My greatest dream is to contribute to the development of new drugs that would unleash the brain’s repair potential. I would like to do my bit to give patients with SM and other neurodegenerative diseases a new hope for a fuller, more active life”, she explains.

In praise of diversity and “daily mentoring”

“The situation of women in science is improving; it is definitely better than several or more years ago. There is also more awareness of the need to react to blatant discrimination against women, especially in STEM fields. When I just started my freshmen year at university, I remember one of our lecturers said something to the effect of ‘the gentlemen will remember, the ladies will note it down’. If that happened today, I believe he would be instantly called out for it”, says Dr Marta Pacia. Pacia adds that this was just an isolated incident and she has otherwise been lucky to work in environments that promote equality and put the emphasis on “skills and hard work”. She underscores that in order for us to create equal opportunities for men and women in science, we need to make provisions for career breaks in the bylaws of research-funding institutions (such as the NCN or the ERC) or scholarship programmes. “Provisions of this kind would limit the negative effects of unplanned career breaks, such as, e.g. prolonged sick leaves, but also appease women’s fear of a longer hiatus related to childbirth, for example. Thanks to such measures, women who decide to have a baby won’t lose the ability to apply for research funding when one of the submission criteria is age or the number of years that have elapsed since their PhD. In general, this gives everyone a better chance to reconcile research with parenting, but it’s still not easy”, she adds.

Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz: Speaking for the organisers of L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science, you mentioned the perks of working in a diverse environment.

Marta Pacia: I think that diversity on many levels, in terms of gender, educational background and skills, is crucial for science. Working in a highly diverse environment allows you to remain open to change and increases your flexibility when it comes to worldview and problem-solving. A person with a background in physics will approach a research problem differently than someone with a background in chemistry or biology.

I believe that research teams that are internally diverse, especially in terms of research experience, but also in terms of gender, are more creative and efficient. The diversity of perspectives really contributes to achieving innovative solutions.

AKJ: The L’Oréal-UNESCO programme definitely boosts women’s visibility in science. Women researchers I have talked with thus far often emphasise the importance of various mentoring initiatives and the support that more senior women researchers provide to their junior colleagues. Is your experience similar?

MP: I have never benefited from any organised mentoring initiative, probably because initiatives of this kind have only become popular recently and when I was a PhD student they weren’t that widespread. I think that mentoring is extremely helpful, especially for the community of junior researchers. But I completely agree that winning the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women and Science award has contributed in an important way to increasing my recognisability in the research world.

While I completely support organised mentoring initiatives for young women, I believe what really matters in your career is the “daily mentoring” of the people you work with from day to day. I have always been lucky to work with excellent researchers, both men and women, who have impacted my research capability and helped me always achieve increasingly ambitious goals.

When I was a PhD candidate, I also had the pleasure of working with a woman advisor who not only shaped my career path at that time, but also my entire worldview, which is something I fell very grateful for. Last year, when I was approached by a female PhD student from our research unit, who asked me to help with her grant application, I said yes, even though we only had two weeks left before the deadline, because this is something that my advisor once did for me. Just to be clear, if a male PhD student came to me with a similar request, my decision would be the same. I feel really happy to be able to pass on the support I once experienced to others.

AKJ: What initiatives do you think we should take to support gender equality in science? I mean especially low-cost ideas that could be easily implemented at the level of any research institution.

MP: Making provisions for career breaks, especially maternity leave, in annual researcher assessment schemes, slot-based evaluation or other forms of assessment. When it comes to parenting breaks, the situation has improved a lot with the decision to allow researchers to extend their project duration, both at the NCN, and at my own unit, the Jagiellonian University. Overall, the goals set by the Jagiellonian University in its Gender Equality Plan are both ambitious and well-defined, so I am keeping my fingers crossed for their implementation.

A lot still remains to be done

Aleksandra Rutkowska, photo: LOreal-UNESCO For Women and Science When asked about the situation of women in science, Dr Aleksandra Rutkowska also admits that it has improved in recent years, but hastens to add that a lot still remains to be done. “Efforts to counteract differences in how men and women are perceived and promote women’s participation in STEM fields are gaining momentum, which helps raise awareness of the problem and fosters new policies and initiatives aimed at levelling the playing field. But we still need to do a lot more before we can say that women enjoy equal opportunities, recognition and resources in the world of science”, she says. Rutkowska argues that for women’s position in science to change, what we need is “a higher representation of women in executive positions, a greater visibility of women researchers in the media, and better support mechanisms for women in science”.

During the L’Oréal-UNESCO awards ceremony, she pointed out that the “first seven years after the PhD are critical in the career of any researcher” and called for the widespread implementation of solutions that would enable women to include maternity-related career breaks. “I was 12 weeks pregnant when I defended my PhD dissertation; for the next 6 years, I was either pregnant or on maternity leave”, she recalled.

Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz asked Dr Rutkowska about solutions that could make it easier for women to reconcile their family and research roles. Dr Rutkowska replied: “The extension of the period during which one is still defined as a ‘young researcher’ to account for maternity leave has allowed me to continue my work in research after I had my three kids. Without it, I would have had to give up my research career altogether. From my perspective, this is the key solution behind the increase in the number of women getting their habilitated doctor degree that we have seen in recent years. Before, we would lose the majority of women in the period between their PhD and their habilitation. Similar solutions have already been put in place at the NCN, the NCBiR, FNP and for the scholarships from the Ministry of Education and Science. However, some awards and distinctions still make no allowances for that hiatus”.

Rutkowska also adds that “both in grant application and habilitation proceedings, there remains the great challenge of levelling the playing field in terms of mobility”.

“Young researchers are expected to complete several international postdoctoral fellowships. It is a criterion considered and appreciated by reviewers in grant and award programmes and habilitation proceedings. The problem was partly addressed under the SONATINA grant; the NCN now awards an extra 3,000 zlotys per each month of the fellowship to support the researcher’s family. The fellowship can also be reduced to 3 months or divided into shorter periods. Such solutions are needed on a much greater scale to allow young researchers to grow their careers.

“Even though the period spent on maternity leave is formally included in record assessment, reviewers often skip this criterion or, perhaps, simply lack the necessary information, which often results in a negative assessment of gaps in the publication record. Perhaps a solution to address this situation would be to train reviewers or provide them with clear information on career breaks. At the NCN, such information is already included in the proposal and I have never been criticised for gaps in my publication record when applying to the NCN. However, I have received such criticism in other basic research-funding institutions. Importantly, and I want to emphasise this, enforcing uniform research record assessment practices across different research-funding institutions could help eliminate potential disparities in the treatment of applicants”, says Dr Rutkowska.