‘Unless you are collaborating with a big name successful professor, you are unlikely to receive funding’

Women consistently remain underrepresented in senior academic roles within the academy worldwide. Academics increasingly require research funding to conduct research, leading to publications, both of which can then be used for promotion applications. This article explores fourteen academic women's experiences of the research funding process in New Zealand, to provide insights into one aspect of why this inequity continues. The findings identify institutional, personal, and funding issues that impact on women's application behaviour. Addressing these may assist in developing women's careers as academics and provides us with a more in-depth understanding of the issues than have previously been gleamed from large quantitative studies.