Performance-based research funding and gender diversity in research: evidence from UK universities

This study provides causal evidence on how performance-based research funding affects gender diversity, using the UK’s transition from the Research Assessment Exercise to the Research Excellence Framework in 2009 as a natural experiment. Using difference-in-differences estimation, we compare twenty-four Russell Group UK universities with twenty-three matched US research-intensive universities from 2001 to 2021. Results demonstrate that performance-based funding increased female participation in collaborative research by 10.3 percentage points (0.90 standard deviations). Citation analysis reveals that increased female participation coincided with higher research impact, with treated papers receiving 4.79 more citations on average. Our findings suggest that performance-based research funding effectively promotes gender diversity while maintaining research quality. It is important to note, however, that increased female participation alone does not resolve or address the persistent gender pay disparities in UK academia.