In conversation with the Coalition for Academic Freedom in the Americas (CAFA), the researcher discusses the challenges of gender equity in science and the importance of ensuring the full participation of women to strengthen academic freedom, democracy, and human rights.
On the occasion of International Women’s Day, the Coalition for Academic Freedom in the Americas (CAFA) spoke with Laura Rovelli, a researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) and professor at the National University of La Plata.
A specialist in science policy, research evaluation, and open science, Rovelli is one of the most prominent voices in Latin America in debates on research systems, gender equity, and academic freedom. In this interview, she reflects on the challenges women face in science, the structural barriers in academic careers, and the impact of recent budget cuts on Argentina’s scientific system.
As a leading woman in the field of science policy and academic freedom, what barriers have you faced throughout your career? Have there been moments when your authority or legitimacy was questioned for gender-related reasons?
Laura Rovelli – That is a very relevant and interesting question. I could say that my academic career began as a fellow at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council, and after completing my PhD I became a researcher. I would say that the greatest adversities or challenges arose during that transition from fellow to researcher, and they were related to moments in my personal life that coincided with caregiving responsibilities.
At that time, these issues were not taken into account by the institution, particularly in matters related to motherhood, when maternity leave for fellows did not yet exist.
Fortunately, after the collective struggle of fellows, women researchers, and different organized and union spaces, those leaves and some other improvements were achieved. But I would say that the greatest adversities had to do with that: moments of high productivity demands in academia that coincided with personal periods of care that were not recognized by the career structure at the time.
The academic environment is very hierarchical and is a space where different tensions and challenges exist. Although I have not directly faced gender-based questioning of my scientific production simply for being a woman, that problem does exist.
Rather, the issues I faced were related to this structural dissociation within the system between academic trajectories and the personal life transitions of women researchers.
Our entire history and our lives beyond work also matter. Women often have double or triple workloads, and pursuing an academic career alongside all other responsibilities still represents a challenge.
You have worked extensively on research evaluation and science policy. How do systems of evaluation, promotion, and academic recognition reproduce gender bias? What structural transformations do you consider urgent in order to advance toward greater equity?
Laura Rovelli – This question is very timely because, first of all, we must consider that women, globally, continue to be one of the most vulnerable groups within scientific and research systems.
A recent UNESCO study shows that women make up only about one third of the world’s research workforce. In Latin America, the situation varies widely: there are countries with greater equity or even parity, such as Argentina, but there are others where significant gender inequality persists in the distribution of research personnel, such as Peru.
A second issue relates to another phenomenon that can also be observed globally and regionally. There has been a significant increase in women’s access to postgraduate education, particularly at the master’s and doctoral levels. However, there has not been a corresponding expansion in academic job opportunities to absorb this highly trained workforce. This creates a major gap between access to doctoral training and the real possibilities for entering the academic labor market.
As you mentioned, this issue is also present in policies for evaluating academic careers. There are several distortions related to women’s access to research funding. Various studies show that within the same call for proposals, women tend to request smaller amounts of funding and, as a result, receive fewer grants.
This is something that culturally we must change, but there are also biases within peer-review processes: in who evaluates, in how scientific production is valued, and in how the trajectories of women researchers are interpreted.
Another issue is productivity during key moments in academic careers that often coincide with motherhood.
We also observe that when parental leave policies are incorporated into scientific systems, men are often the ones who manage to capitalize on those periods to increase their academic productivity. This shows that mechanisms intended to promote equity still need to be reviewed and improved.
For evaluation to be fairer, the system itself must be fairer. And this requires structural changes in the labor, social, and cultural spheres that allow equity to be promoted in a structural way.
We have also seen situations of harassment and censorship directed at researchers working on gender, inequality, or climate change. From certain sectors of the government, violent rhetoric has been promoted against those who research or defend these agendas.
We know that in many countries across the Americas researchers have faced challenges due to budget cuts, and Argentina is one of them. Could you tell us how these challenges have been addressed and what the specific impacts are for women researchers? Do these measures deepen existing gender inequalities?
Laura Rovelli – Indeed, we are currently experiencing an extremely difficult context in Argentina for public education in general, for higher education, and also for science policy, following the election of a far-right government in 2023.
There have been severe budget cuts in the sector: reductions in the salaries of teaching, research, and administrative staff; cuts to scholarships; reduced funding for research projects; and significant dismantling of key institutions such as the National Agency for the Promotion of Scientific, Technological and Innovation Research.
The operational capacity of universities and research centers has been greatly weakened, limited, and restricted.
There is a university funding law that was approved by Congress to guarantee the functioning of universities, but that law is not being fully implemented. Currently, different organizations within the university and scientific system are demanding that the budget established in that law be guaranteed.
Additionally, there are limitations on entry into the CONICET research career. Today there are more than 800 pending appointments: individuals who were positively evaluated and approved to enter the research career but are still waiting to be incorporated for budgetary reasons.
In this context, women—especially fellows—are affected in multiple ways: by the difficulty of accessing stable positions, by the deterioration of salaries, and also because research agendas related to gender have been displaced from many of the few existing calls for proposals.
I would even say that this is part of a broader problem. There is a threat to the social sciences, the humanities, and the arts, which have been explicitly deprioritized by current authorities. Topics such as gender, inequality, or climate change have been sidelined in a context of denialist discourses about science, memory, and climate change.
Instead, priority has been given to areas considered more economically productive, such as energy, mining, health, or technology.
This is very serious, because we know that when women participate in science they tend to introduce questions that affect historically invisible populations, such as those related to health, care work, or social vulnerabilities.
Moreover, these inequalities intersect with other vulnerabilities related to social class, territorial location, or disability. There is a strong intersectionality in the barriers we face within the scientific system.
We have also seen situations of harassment and censorship directed at researchers working on gender, inequality, or climate change. From certain sectors of the government, violent rhetoric has been promoted against those who research or defend these agendas.
A scientific system that excludes women not only commits an injustice, but also undermines the quality of its own scientific production.
In the context of March 8, how do you analyze the relationship between gender equality, knowledge production, and academic freedom in Argentina? Why is guaranteeing the full participation of women in science also a democratic issue?
Laura Rovelli – March 8 is a day on which we commemorate the struggle of working women, including within the scientific and university fields.
Women’s participation in science is not only a matter of equity or of making use of our talents—although it is also that—but fundamentally a matter of human rights.
It concerns the right to participate in scientific and academic life and the right to benefit from the advances of knowledge.
When a researcher leaves the scientific career not due to a lack of ability, but because of harassment, different forms of bias, structural inequalities, the defunding of research lines, or because the career was designed as a linear path that does not take into account different stages of life, we are facing a violation of rights.
Furthermore, a scientific community that systematically excludes women, gender-diverse people, and other marginalized groups is not truly free.
Academic freedom is not measured only by freedom of teaching and expression—although that is crucial—but also by the real possibility of conducting research, teaching, producing knowledge, and engaging with society.
When that right cannot be fully exercised due to wage gaps, glass ceilings, or structural segregation, we must remain vigilant.
A scientific system that excludes women not only commits an injustice, but also undermines the quality of its own scientific production.
For this reason, it is essential to continue fighting collectively for more equitable access to and participation in science in our region.
In the context of the CAFA campaign on women and girls in science, what message would you give to young women who wish to pursue a scientific career in Latin America, especially in contexts of institutional instability and budget restrictions?
Laura Rovelli – Despite the contexts of instability and restrictions we have discussed, creating networks of knowledge production and communities of scholarship within academia continues to be, for me, deeply stimulating.
It is a task that inspires me, that helps me grow, and that allows me to expand theoretical and methodological horizons, while also intervening in social processes alongside communities that benefit from the knowledge we co-produce.
To those who feel this vocation for science, I would say: keep going. It is important that women participate and that we do so in networks, with solidarity and cooperation.
In adverse contexts such as the current one in Argentina, it is also essential to strengthen processes of collective mobilization and articulation among different spaces.
We need to imagine new ways of confronting these challenges, with political creativity and collective organization.
Only in this way will we be able to build fairer conditions for women’s participation in science.