The new EPO report Advancing women in STEM examines gender gaps across Europe’s innovation system. One of its most interesting findings is that women in STEM do not seem to lack research with technological relevance, but they are still less likely than men to appear as inventors on patents.
Using linked data on STEM PhD graduates from seven European countries, the report shows that women are far less likely than men to file patents both during and after the PhD. At the same time, this gap is much smaller when the focus shifts from patenting itself to publications at or close to the technological frontier.
These findings indicate that the lower patenting rate of women cannot simply be explained by the idea that their research is less relevant for invention. On the contrary, the report suggests that women often produce research that is similarly close to technological application. The problem seems to arise in the step from research to patenting.
The full report is available here: Advancing women in STEM – A data-driven assessment of the gender gap across Europe’s innovation ecosystem
Dr. Johannes König 