Guidelines for Gender Equality Programmes in Science - GeNet

Graph 7 – Female participation among researchers, associate and full professors in EU-27 countries,
USA, Canada, Australia, 2007 (%)
50%
40%
Researchers (grade C) Associate professors (grade B) Full professors (grade A)
47
44
42 41
36 35 35 34
30%
20%
19 18 18 19
10%
0%
EU27 USA Canada Australia
Source: European Commission, 2009; American Association of University Professors, 2004; Canadian
Association of University Professors, 2007; DEST, 2002
evaluating parameters such as p u b l i c a t i o n s
and p a t e n t s, which – beyond measuring
productivity – also represent women’s importance
in scientific communication and technological
innovation, and the extent of their
inclusion in important scientific and industryrelated
networks.
As for publications, the results of a study
published by the Italian National Research
Council (CNR) in 2002 are worth mentioning
(Naldi & Vannini Parenti, 2002). This was an
analysis of 10,000 articles published in 1995
in 95 journals specialised in diff e r e n t
disciplines (Biology, Chemistry, Medicine,
Earth sciences, Engineering, Mathematics,
Physics), parametered according to the
Science Citation Index (SCI) criteria.
Publications were authored by 35,000
scholars from 6 European countries (United
Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and
Sweden).
The proportion of articles authored by
women, alone or together with other
researchers, is shown in graph 8. It emerges
that women tend to publish slightly less than
men, when controlling for their presence as
researchers in the different disciplinary fields,
though the width of the gap is wider in some
fields (biology and medicine, for instance)
than in others (engineering, mathematics and
physics).
A study by the European Commission (2004)
links publication rates to academic rank.
Following this view, the lower productivity of
women can be explained by the fact that they
are working at lower professional ranks than
men. Within the same category, it seems that
there is no significant difference by gender
(Bordons, Morillo, Fernandez, & Gomez,
2003).
The same study reports the opinions of
Schiebinger and Valian, according to whom
Graph 8 – Proportion of women and men among authors of scientific publications by disciplinary field
in some European countries, 1995 (%)
100%
Women
Men
80%
60%
74,1 81,3 79,6 73,8
82,9 87,7
79,7
40%
20%
0%
25,9 18,7 20,4 26,2
17,1 12,3 20,3
Biol Chem Med Earth Eng Math Phys
Source: Naldi & Vannini Parenti, 2002
32