More women in academia, with more scientific publications and inventors

Source: El Mostrador

Chile ranks third in the OECD for gender equity in science and technology patents. This was recently revealed by INAPI’s Gender Report: Analysis of Women Inventors, which adds that the proportion of Chilean women inventors in patent applications rose 5.4 points compared to 2020.

This is a major milestone for our country. It helps us position ourselves not only in the science and technology field, but also from the standpoint of intellectual property and patents.

This third place in gender equity in science and technology patents reflects the good research and development (R&D) carried out in Chile, which needed to become visible not only through scientific publications but also through patents.

Chile shows good international quality standards in scientific publications. This is reflected in the number of citations per publication per year. As of 2018, Chilean scientific articles were cited 3.7 times on average, compared with an OECD average of 3.8. Considering that we have a small research community (1.1 people dedicated to R&D per thousand workers) compared with the OECD average (8.6 people dedicated to R&D per thousand workers), this is truly outstanding.

We must redouble our efforts so that what we have seen in patents is reflected in other areas of knowledge.

But these results must also be taken with restraint and a broad perspective. We must keep improving not only gender equity in patents, but also the number of scientific articles published by women, the equitable career progression of women researchers at universities and research centers, support for increasing the number of women-led ventures, and greater participation of women in the labor market and in knowledge-intensive sectors, such as technology, innovation and tech entrepreneurship.

It is progress. But there is still a long way to go. We must redouble our efforts so that what we have seen in patents is reflected in other areas of knowledge. In this regard, there are gaps still to be closed in STEM, which were identified this year in the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation’s study “Evaluación de Brechas de Género en la Trayectoria de Investigación” (Assessment of Gender Gaps in Research Careers).

That study shows that women researchers in Chile publish fewer scientific articles on average than their male counterparts, that the scientific research funding system does not treat men and women equally, that various barriers prevent women from advancing in their research careers, and that women researchers earn 11% less than their male colleagues with the same years of experience, scientific productivity and public funding awards.

All members of the national science, technology and innovation ecosystem, both public and private, have a mandate to take on greater responsibility in designing and implementing initiatives that help “level the playing field” and properly incorporate gender issues.

Read the opinion column published in El Mostrador HERE