LEADERS SUMMIT 2017
Leaders Empowering the Advancement of Diversity in Education, Research, and Science (LEADERS) is an organization dedicated to advancing women’s health by expanding the number and impact of endowed chairs in women’s health across academic internal medicine and related disciplines. By advancing academic leadership through increasing endowed chair positions, our goal is to advance crucial research, education, community engagement, and clinical initiatives in the health of women. LEADERS works to strengthen academic medicine and improve the health of women.
Endowed chairs are among the most powerful mechanisms academic institutions have to drive excellence, innovation, and long-term impact in women’s health, providing sustained mentorship, sponsorship, visibility, and stature that can accelerate research, and influence institutional priorities to address critical issues in women's health and sex differences and education. By supporting distinguished scholars and leaders, endowed chairs help ensure that women’s health remains a strategic priority within academic medicine and provide the institutional influence needed to shape the future of women’s health.
LEADERS was founded on the recognition that advancing women’s health and advancing women leaders are closely interconnected and mutually reinforcing goals. Because many academic leaders in women's health are women, increasing the number of endowed chair holders in this field strengthens the pipeline for all, especially women in senior academic leadership positions. Endowed chairs provide not only salary and programmatic support, but also the institutional stature, influence and stability necessary to recruit and retain outstanding faculty, build multidisciplinary programs, secure additional funding, and shape institutional priorities. As such, endowed chairs in women’s health are institutional assets and engines of impact.
Since its founding in 2013, the actions and advocacy of LEADERS have helped grow a network of endowed chair holders in women's health across North America. What began as a core group of 6 endowed chair holders has expanded to 45 endowed chairs and professorships in women’s health across the US and Canada. More than half of these positions can be attributed to institutional leadership of LEADERS members. A current list of endowed chairs is available at https://leaderswomenshealth.org/endowed-chairs.
The impact of endowed chairs extends well beyond individual faculty members. By providing a steady source of salary and programmatic support, endowed chairs in women's health frequently leverage their positions to promote recruitment of leading investigators to study women's health issues, provide a means to retain highly skilled academicians in this field, elevate women’s health as an institutional priority, and give chair holders the stature to pursue senior leadership positions in academia. The collective experience of LEADERS members was described in the publication Advancing Women's Health and Women's Leadership. With Endowed Chairs in Women's Health (Acad Med. 2017), which highlights the critical role endowed chair holders play in strengthening women's leadership, enhancing the visibility of women's health, and expanding activities in women's health research, education, and clinical care.
Despite their importance, endowed chairs remain disproportionately held by men. The need for continued investment remains clear. A 2020 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine examined endowed chairs at the ten US medical schools receiving the highest levels of NIH funding. Among 1,634 full professors at these institutions, 25% held endowed chairs, and of those, 81.5% were men, and 18.5% were women. Male faculty were significantly more likely to hold endowed chairs, even after adjustment for differences in specialty, degree, citations, funding, and graduation year. These findings suggest that structural factors, including disparities in sponsorship, visibility, and access to philanthropic networks, continue to influence who attain these prestigious positions.
Previous research supports that women must have greater professional achievements than men to be considered meritorious, and this could affect selection and sponsorship for endowed chairs.
LEADERS is addressing these gaps by providing mentorship and training to senior women and men leaders in the field of women's health to achieve endowed chair holder status, and empowering chair holders to create additional endowed chair positions. LEADERS seeks to build a sustainable model for expanding leadership capacity in women’s health.
Beyond leadership development, LEADERS advances education and scholarship in women's health at the graduate and post-graduate level through collaboration and providing a forum for senior academicians to disseminate best practices and share educational resources and initiatives on women's health education. In addition, LEADERS members also collaborate on scholarly publications and perspectives that advance the shared mission of promoting research and education on understanding biological sex differences and women’s health across disciplines. The collaborative efforts of LEADERS continue to elevate and advance the health of women through shared strategies, mutual support, education, and advocacy, in order to address persistent research gaps and unmet needs in women’s health. Publications and additional resources are available here: https://leaderswomenshealth.org/publications.
The need for sustained investment in women’s health leadership has never been greater. Through shared leadership, mentorship, advocacy, and philanthropy, LEADERS continues to demonstrate that endowed chairs in women’s health and related disciplines are not merely honors bestowed upon individuals—they are strategic investments that strengthen institutions, accelerate scientific discovery, and improve the health of women and the health of all. Through these shared objectives, LEADERS remains committed to continuing to build a stronger future for women’s health.