Professor Dame Athene Donald, professor of experimental physics at Robinson College and a supporter of gender equality movements in academia, has attacked a report produced by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee for being “fairly weak” in its recommendations for improving equality.

Speaking to Varsity, she said that the focus of the recent report, which aimed to establish measures for increasing women’s role in the academic sciences, was misjudged: “The recent ... report called on HEIs collectively to do more. Cambridge doesn’t need to be told this because we are already hard at work on the issue and I think so are many other universities.”

She added that many of the issues affecting women’s involvement in science were outside the control of universities, and that the report failed to acknowledge this.

“Funders may have processes in place that disadvantage women in quite subtle ways. The short term contracts that are the typical lot of early career researchers upon completion of their PhDs was one issue raised. To modify this pattern of employment would need a huge, collective discussion of many bodies, most notably including funders. It would represent a significant shift in the way research is done and by lengthening appointments would be likely to have the effect of reducing their numbers.”