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According to the latest report from the European Patent Office (EPO), the proportion of female inventors (WIR) among all inventors with annual patent applications has increased from around 2% in the late 1970s to over 13% in 2019.
The report, which tracks patenting activity in 38 member states, shows that some European countries and industries are struggling to achieve gender parity. “Women scientists have historically been denied equal opportunities, and they remain underrepresented among inventors listed in patent applications,” EPO President António Campinos writes in the report’s foreword. While some countries on the continent have shown significant progress, the gap between male and female inventors in Europe remains larger than elsewhere in the world, especially when compared to some Asian countries, where women are a major force for innovation.
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Illustration photo Latvian women are leading in innovation and invention with a WIR rate of over 30% |
Accordingly, the European WIR average (13%) is higher than Japan (9.5%), but lower than the US (15.0%), and significantly lower than China (26.8%) and South Korea (28.3%) in 2019. Interestingly, the lowest proportion of female inventors is in Austria (8.0%), Germany (10.0%) and the Netherlands (11.9%), although these countries are among the top 10 countries with the most patents granted at the EPO.
Chemistry is the technology field in which women invent the most, accounting for 22% of patents. This is four times more than mechanical engineering, which has the lowest WIR (5.2%). This can be explained by a variety of factors, the report says, ranging from women’s educational preferences for chemistry and life sciences to “different working conditions in different economic sectors and their impact on work-family balance”. Within chemistry, women file the most patents in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, with a WIR of over 30%.
Women’s under-patenting is largely due to “the fact that they face more difficult choices than men, particularly when pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM),” the report said. The data shows that female academics file about 40 percent fewer patent applications than men, despite similar scientific productivity. When it comes to inventions described in scientific publications and granted patents, women are less likely to be credited as authors of publications than their male co-authors.
Universities and public research organizations (PROs), which include hospitals, nonprofits, and government agencies, have a significantly higher proportion of women patenting (19.4%) than private companies (10%), not to mention the technology sector. This suggests that the greater the role of universities and PROs in patenting, the greater the proportion of patents by women.
For women, inequality in invention also means less income, as data shows that researchers’ income is closely linked to the number of patents filed. “Increasing women’s participation in science therefore remains a major challenge for Europe, as well as a key factor in its future sustainability and competitiveness,” concluded EPO chief Campinos.
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