Discovering gender discrimination in project funding

Romei A, Ruggieri S, Turini F

Classification  data mining  Gender discrimination 

The selection of projects for funding can hide discriminatory decisions. We present a case study investigating gender discrimination in a dataset of scientific research proposals submitted to an Italian national call. The method for the analysis relies on a data mining classification strategy that is inspired by a legal methodology for proving evidence of social discrimination against protected-by-law groups.