The National Science Foundation is introducing new workplace flexibility policies to make it easier for people to both pursue a research career and raise a family. 'I was absolutely thrilled' to hear about the NSF Career–Life Balance Initiative, says Angela Speck, an astrophysics professor at the University of Missouri who has a spouse in academia and two children. 'It sends a message that it's okay to take a break.' Not only will the initiative help those who want to have or adopt children, she says, but it will also make it easier for supervisors to 'find ways to make it work. It's an important move. It's subtler than the practicalities.'
At a White House event marking the 26 September rollout of NSF's new initiative, First Lady Michelle Obama said, “If we’re going to out-innovate and out-educate the rest of the world, we’ve got to open doors for everyone. We need all hands on deck, and that means clearing hurdles for women and girls as they navigate careers in science, technology, engineering, and math [STEM fields].”
The 10-year plan is intended to 'provide greater work-related flexibility for women and men in research careers,' said NSF director Subra Suresh. One goal is that in about a decade the percentage of women who hold tenure-track science and engineering positions will match the percentage of women granted doctorates in those fields today. Currently, in STEM fields, women earn 41% of PhDs but make up only 28% of the tenure-track faculty. In physics, those numbers are about 19% and 14%, respectively.
Among other things, the NSF Career–Life Balance Initiative will
- allow grant recipients to defer their awards for up to one year to care for their newborn or newly adopted children
- allow grant recipients to suspend their awards to take parental leave
- provide supplements to cover research technicians to maintain labs while principal investigators are on family leave
- promote family friendliness for panel reviewers by allowing them to conduct reviews remotely
- continue to encourage research that assesses the effectiveness of policies aimed at keeping women in the STEM pipeline
Suresh said that the initial steps 'involve taking highly successful best practices . . . that have been in place only in small pockets of the National Science Foundation, and elevating them to an agency-wide activity.' He added that 'a number of seemingly simple policy steps' can be implemented 'irrespective of what the budget climate is,' and they will have 'a huge impact over the course of many years.'
To begin with, NSF is focusing on postdocs and young faculty. 'Not everything has to be rolled out at once,' Suresh said. Later, he added, programs may be introduced to help people at earlier and more advanced stages in their career. 'It would be nice to have accommodations to take a break later in one's career, for example, to take care of a sick spouse,' says Speck. 'But once your career is established, it should be able to run without you for a while.' However, she adds, later in the pipeline 'is not where we are hemorrhaging women.'
'It's been estimated that over the past several decades, something like 50% of US economic growth has come from advances in science and engineering,' said John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, at the briefing. 'We really cannot afford to continue to neglect the half of the national talent pool that women represent.'
The NSF initiative goes hand in hand with programs by the White House, universities, and other organizations to increase the number of girls and women in STEM fields. The broad spectrum of commitments show that, Suresh said, 'momentum is gaining when government and non-government groups decide that the time has come to make real challenges, and real changes that can benefit individuals, institutions, and the nation.'
'People should not presume that workplace flexibility policies are only good for employees,' said Holdren, citing a study that found that 'flexible workplaces often attract the best workers, help reduce absenteeism and contribute to lower turnover, and help increase productivity.'
