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Women continue to be underrepresented among senior scientists, with no appreciable improvement over the last few years, according to a study published yesterday (September 5) in Cell Stem Cell. Based on data collected in “institutional report cards” sent to research facilities worldwide, the authors found that overall, just 24 percent of tenured science, math, and engineering professors at the participating organizations are women, despite the fact that women comprise 57 percent of undergraduates in those fields.
“There is no point in encouraging more girls into science if the system is set up to exclude them,” Imperial College London physicist Jessica Wade, who was not involved in the study, tells the BBC. “Improving gender balance in science will take institutional commitments to support women in their applications for promotion, act when there are reports of sexual harassment or bullying and make work allocation more transparent.”
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