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

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.

Female researchers tend to have shorter, less well-paid careers. Their work is underrepresented in high-profile journals and they are often passed over for promotion, according to a 2021  UNESCO report.

A viewpoint: Chiara Banas, patent scientist at EIP

Last year, Women in STEM reported that the percentage of female graduates with core STEM degrees is on the rise, however,  this still accounts for just 26%.

As one of those graduates, there are two main areas where I have seen a lack of representation in life sciences.  Firstly, the disparity of representation between sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, and secondly, the disparity of women in senior STEM roles.

I have been interested in science from a young age and felt supported to pursue science throughout my school years. During secondary school, there was already a great push from teachers and external bodies to get more girls interested in STEM subjects.

However, STEM encompasses a wide range of fields and there was a disparity in representation between fields. For example, there was an equal or greater number of girls to boys in my biology A-level class. However, I was only one of two girls in my physics A-level class.

When looking at representation in STEM, it is important to consider the discipline that women are working in. From my experience, getting girls and women interested in studying life sciences and medicine does not seem to be an issue. The issue lies in getting girls and women to take an interest in and be supported in physical sciences, computer sciences, engineering, technology, and bioinformatics. It is important that more girls and women are encouraged to learn coding and bioinformatics, so that we do not miss out on opportunities in these fields.

The gender gap in senior positions

Although there does not seem to be an issue with getting girls and women interested in studying life sciences initially, the disparity seems to arise as women progress in their careers. Similar to my experience in my biology A-level class, I found that there was an equal number of women in my university classes. I only started to see a decrease of women at the post-doctoral level, which decreased further at more senior positions.

This disparity was the most visible at the most senior levels of professorship and principal investigators. The focus needs to be on supporting women throughout their careers to progress into senior roles.

I have been a trainee patent attorney at EIP for nearly a year now. I studied microbiology for my undergraduate degree and then a PhD in immunology and bioinformatics. During that time, I also interned as a bioinformatician at a biotech company.

I have always been interested in how these microorganisms work and evolve. In particular, I have been fascinated by how these “small and relatively simple” organisms can successfully infect humans, with our complex and sophisticated immune system.

The future of life sciences

I also decided to study bioinformatics as it is a field that has grown incredibly quickly in the last couple of years and I believe that it is the future of science. I used bioinformatics to study how all the genes in a cell change in response to viral infection and immunological signals.

This has allowed us to understand how cells react to changes and study which pathways are activated. Historically, it would have been too time-consuming and costly to study these thousands of genes in the laboratory. As a result, bioinformatics has allowed massive advancement in scientific research in an incredibly short time.

Having bioinformatics knowledge has been highly beneficial to me, from learning coding to the opportunities that have been opened. Being able to code is an important skill to have and, from my experience, a skill that employers are seeking from candidates now.

There is already a great number of women in the life science field and so it would be beneficial to use this existing workforce to train more women in bioinformatics.