Appreciation of the manuscript:

This paper assesses the current situation on the gender gap inequalities in science and the impact of caregiving on scientific careers. Today this gap is particularly visible at the senior-level positions. It is, among other things, mostly because women often, but not exclusively, take on a caregiver role towards children during the crucial years post PhD. The post-docs and tenure track years before a permanent position are a critical phase of the scientific career, where scientists are expected to be highly productive in terms of scientific output and grant capture, and which often coincides with the child bearing age and where international mobility is expected. The re-entry of caregivers into research and juggling their careers with a caregiver role is not fully acknowledged by the work environment. The paper makes suggestions on how to tackle this problem.

We believe that the manuscript tackles a highly pertinent topic in researcher welfare, gender gap and the impacts of caregiving. The authors review the sources of the problem, the mechanisms behind it, and propose several solutions, some of which could have benefits that permeate across the researcher community to improve researcher welfare. We are far from being a specialist in the subject, but we have read the manuscript with much interest, and by reading it we have a better understanding of the issue, and have gained understanding of the challenges faced by caregiving colleagues. We believe it would be a welcome addition to the "Biological Science Practice" section of Proceedings B, which might interest a broad readership in the biological sciences. We therefore recommend publication following minor corrections.

We do have a few comments and suggestions though that should/could be addressed before publication:

The authors equate the Matilda effect to the Matthew effect (Line 199).
My humble understanding of the Matilda effect is the preferential recognition of male scientist as lead scientist over female collaborators working on the same project. Or that the work of women is unjustifiably attributed to men. This is not the way the Matilda effect is referred to throughout the manuscript, but more like the Matthew effect, which relates to the snowball effect where a researcher that has had previous success in grant capture will see his chances of further grant capture increased. This confusion should be corrected throughout the manuscript.

The authors suggest increasing the funding for caregivers; However, some thought should be given to the overall cost to science of doing so: could it result in a subsequent reduction of available funds for science? A reduced number of grants? And a consequent recrudescence of the competition? Or worse, a selection point against funding projects submitted by those requesting extra funds for caregiving. Such extra funding for caregivers should be independent from funding granting agencies, so as not to bias selection of grants or to total volume of available funds.

I am slightly concerned by the proposition of relaxing the mobility obligations of grants such as Marie Sklodowska Curie.
There are many benefits to mobility grants: working in different countries, expanded networks, exposure to different funding opportunities and work cultures, as well as diversifying the range of opportunities for permanent work. By relaxing the mobility criteria of Marie Sklodowska Curie funding, caregivers would lose in the opportunity to work in a foreign country. Is this an actual benefit in the long term? Other than caregiving, there are many other reasons why a researcher might not want to travel abroad: partners, family, health issues…. Some are truly unavoidable: very elderly dependents, health issues… but if at all possible mobility should be encouraged. Instead, action should perhaps be aimed at mitigating the problems related to caregiving: provision of childcare, support network for children in schooling age, etc.

Some of the suggestions proposed by the authors could have feedbacks into the wider community:
- more acceptance of flexible career paths (late PhDs, midlife career changes, research hiatus for private enterprise, etc). The acceptation of such paths would enrich the diversity of research environments.
- more respect for private time (e.g. no meetings after 6pm)
- Change of deadlines to not just after holiday times: This would not only benefits caregivers, but also protect the holidays of non-caregivers, which could perhaps stop feeling guilty if not working during holidays.
- I absolutely agree with the suggestion of changing the limits for grant application to something along the lines of: "years after receiving a permanent position". This does not only work against caregivers, but many other non-linear academic pathways with changes in country/discipline. This is particularly poignant for researches who have done many years of postdocs, and may not be in a stable enough position to apply for junior researcher grants until they have a permanent position, by which time they may be too late after PhD.

I am glad that the manuscript recognises the difference between gender and caregiver roles. As it is increasingly common for male partners to take the caregiving roles if the female partner is seen as more successful/advanced in her career. However, male caregivers still suffer the same problems such as going onto part-time jobs or dropping all together from science.
The authors mention the "two body problem". To this problem, there is the added complexity for researchers in Biology that many research institutes are in remote locations throughout the globe, making it difficult for partners to obtain any job at all. A potential suggestion to add to the "parent-tandem grant" is the preferential employment of partners in such remote locations.

Perhaps the authors should stress that the doctoral/postdoctoral/tenure-track years coincide with the years optimal age to have children. Another negative impact of the current research ecosystem, is that researchers might choose not to have children until permanent positions are achieved, which is on average much later than in other fields, leading to delayed and reduced parenthood, which could entail higher probabilities of problems with pregnancy, reduced life fulfilment/happiness, etc. We should encourage practices that make careers in science more compatible with family life.

A topics that is not addressed in the manuscript is whether Maternity AND paternity leaves should grant automatic extensions of funding grants.

Minor comments:

Line 63,85,95 - avoid having sentences in brackets, use commas instead.
Line 132 - represent ALL OF humanity
Line 335 - Explain what the ROPE statement is

As with the previous version of this manuscript, I think this manuscript is well written, addresses a pertinent problem, and should be published. I think this manuscript, being addressed to the biological sciences research community, may summarise and convey a lot of information published in the sociology literature, which we seldom read. I think it has the potential to stir some thought, and perhaps serve as a reference to implement some change in the funding practices. My previous comments have been addressed and I am happy with the authors modifications of the manuscript, which has improved. I will not comment on whether other remarks done by other reviewers and the editor have been properly addressed.

Minor comment:

Throughout the manuscript: avoid having subclause sentences in brackets, use commas instead (e.g. line 290)