UN International Day of Women and Girls in Science: a perspective

10-02-2022

Chiara Banas

UN International Day of Women and Girls in Science: a perspective

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Chiara Banas, patent scientist at EIP, queries the gender gap in life sciences, and shares how her own experiences could prefigure change.

Friday, February 11, marks the United Nations International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The day focuses on the reality that science and gender equality are both vital for the achievement of internationally agreed development goals, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The success of science in finding vaccines against COVID-19 underlines the need to make science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields more inclusive.

According to research by the United Nations, women are typically given smaller research grants than their male colleagues and, while they represent 33% of all researchers, only 12% of members of national science academies are women. In cutting edge fields such as artificial intelligence, only one in five professionals (22%) is a woman.


Gender equality, D&I, patents, EIP, STEM, COVID-19, United Nations, life sciences, immunology, biotechnology

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