Sir

Darach Watson and colleagues, in Correspondence (“Mysterious disappearance of female investigators” Nature 436, 174; 200510.1038/436174a), have pointed out that there were only three women among the 25 recipients of the first year's European Young Investigator (EURYI) awards.

The first year of the EURYI award scheme has been externally evaluated, in a process that included sending questionnaires to 671 applicants, with a 70% response rate, and to all participating organizations (100% response). We also interviewed 20 people involved in the selection. Although these data could not be released while the evaluation was under way, the report is now publicly available at http://www.esf.org/euryi. Raw data may be made available on request.

As a result of the recommendations emerging from the evaluation, the European Science Foundation and organizations participating in EURYI have made a number of improvements to the second year's processes, including ensuring that equal opportunities (EO) are provided to all applicants. Specific improvements include introducing at European-level selection an EO statement in refereeing/assessment documents and specific briefing on EO issues at the beginning of all peer-review meetings, such as interviews.

This approach is supported by results from the second year's EURYI awards. Of the 672 initial applicants for the second year's awards, 24% were women; 24% (31) of the 131 submitted to European selection were women, and of the 25 final recipients of awards, five (20%) were female.

The real issue for the European Science Foundation and EURYI participating organizations is raising the proportion of female applicants at the initial stages of this competition. To achieve this goal, we are adapting our publicity for the next call for EURYI proposals.