Capstone Editing is happy to announce the launch of two new research grants for female academics.

An Australian business established to support female academics is offering two grants to ease pressures that often force women out of academia. Capstone Editing was founded by Dr Lisa Lines, a former history lecturer and mother of two who—like many women—struggled to balance motherhood with an academic career.

‘Women are significantly under-represented in the senior levels of academia in Australia and around the world’, Dr Lines said. ‘It is no secret that the primary reason for the “leaky academic pipeline”, whereby women leave academia or aren’t promoted to the higher levels, is motherhood’.

Academic workloads are huge. Almost all academics work more than 40 hours a week, with more than half working 50–80 hours. This is impossible for many women to sustain, even in these enlightened times, as they still shoulder most family responsibilities. The effect is clear: despite the majority of PhD graduates being women, few are retained as tenured lecturers and even fewer as professors.

‘Universities have been making some progress towards more family-friendly options for academics with caring responsibilities; however, it’s often too little, too late’, Dr Lines said.

‘We often feel trapped and constantly struggling, and that the only solution is to give up pursuing a career we love, which we’ve spent years training for’.

To acknowledge and address this dilemma, Capstone Editing is offering an early career academic research grant, and a travel grant for academic women, to improve publication and networking opportunities.

While Dr Lines has chosen a different path, she hopes that these grants will help encourage our best and brightest female academics to enjoy career progression. Information about the grants

Capstone Editing’s Available Grants for Academic Women