Awards to honor women’s contributions to engineering, innovation and technology

Published: Wednesday 22nd June 2016
Categories: NEWS, INCLUSIVE RESEARCH, Awards
Tags: SDG5, SDG10, AWARDS & PRIZES

Why are women’s innovations so important in the developing world?

It is well known that women generally take fewer STEM courses than men in college and that the numbers of women in science tend to taper off the further up the career ladder they go (often described as the “scissor effect” because of the shape of the graph this produces).

Research also shows that far from being gender-neutral, science knowledge has more evidence for men than for women, research outcomes are frequently worse for women than for men, and men continue to secure the majority of top-level jobs in science and the majority of research funding.

Yet in engineering, technology and innovation, this trend may finally be turning around. Entrepreneurial activity by women has increased by 7 percent across 61 economies since 2012, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2014 Women’s Report, which counted more than 200 million women entrepreneurs across the globe.

This year for the first time, the Elsevier Foundation Awards for Early Career Women Scientists in the Developing World are honoring women’s contributions to engineering, innovation and technology.

• Read the full article on Elsevier Connect “Awards to honor women’s contributions to engineering, innovation and technology”, Tonya Blowers, Program Coordinator for the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD), 22 June 2016