Do female academics submit fewer grant applications than men?

The state of the research on grant application behaviour is that female academics submit fewer proposals than men. This study points out that it is methodologically challenging to draw this conclusion. We know a lot about applicants, but little about the pool of potential applicants as the underlying population. We use a random sample of academics as potential applicants to investigate the grant application activity of male and female researchers. The results show that when an appropriate benchmark is applied (in this case, controlling for academic status and research area), no significant gender differences in grant applications can be found.