Riken – Envisioning Futures

Over the past few years, the percentage of female researchers in Japan has risen from 16.9% to 22% according to Elsevier’s 2020 and 2024 Gender Reports. While this is encouraging, it remains low compared to the global average of 41%. At RIKEN, the largest scientific research institute in Japan, the ratio of female researchers in leadership positions is 9%, a far cry from the global standard. Recently, the Japanese government has postponed its goal of reaching 30% women in leadership positions to 2030.

What we do

This project, led by RIKEN, maps the journeys of distinguished Japanese women scientists with a series of oral histories, shedding light on challenges and best practices in a country with a persistently low numbers of women researchers and research leaders. By doing so and formalizing and disseminating the experience accumulated by female PIs as tacit knowledge, the project aims to accelerate the development of women researchers aiming for leadership positions.

How we deliver

This partnership with RIKEN focuses on interviews with Japanese women principal investigators (PIs). The conversations provide an account of how they acquired leadership and laboratory management skills and how they overcame challenges as PIs. The interviews especially focus on the establishment of management policies through experiential learning and the process of trial and error. These experiences will serve to accelerate the growth of women representation in leadership positions, to support their careers progress, and offer policy makers guidance for positive interventions.

The interviews, alongside national data, were published in the “Envisioning Futures: Women’s Leadership and Gender Equity in Japanese Research” report, which is currently being translated into Japanese. The report blends data-driven analysis with compelling personal narratives, offering a timely roadmap for institutional change and a call to action for the advancement of women in science and innovation