Report: Women’s participation in science academies

Worldwide, women are poorly represented at decision-making and management levels in the Science, Innovation, Technology and Energy (SITE) sector. Applying a gender lens takes into account the vision, concerns and abilities of both women and men – and makes them more effective, often yield longer term solutions.

GenderInSITE is an international initiative which applies a gender lens to science, innovation, technology and engineering for development. It promotes the role of women in SITE and increases the number of policies and programs globally that take gender into account. The Elsevier Foundation has partnered with GenderInSITE since 2011 in an advisory capacity and contributed funds to a series of education and innovation focused workshops. These have enabled policy makers to meet with scientists, researchers and other stakeholders to explore how best to apply a gender and science lens to specific SDGs in a local and regional context and to develop and disseminate the workshop recommendations to target key stakeholders.

In 2021, the Elsevier Foundation provided interim funding to enable GenderInSITE to finalize a special InterAcademy Partnership-International Science Council study on the participation of women in science academies. It survey 120 science organizations, and offered results that allow for comparisons with a previous study undertaken in 2015, and provide important baseline information for much-needed gender transformation in global science.