(05 April 2013) – Although the proportion of female researchers in Europe is increasing, the under-representation of women in scientific disciplines and careers still persists. This is the message of the latest edition of the “She Figures”, published today.
Women represent only 33% of European researchers, 20% of full professors and 15.5 % of heads of institutions in the Higher Education sector.
Women represent around 40% of all researchers in the Higher Education Sector, 40% in the Government Sector and 19% in the Business Enterprise Sector. While in all sectors their number has been growing faster than that of their male counterparts (+5.1% for women annually compared with +3.3 % for men from 2002 to 2009), female researchers still struggle to reach decision-making positions with, on average, only one woman for every two men on scientific and management boards across the EU.
In 2010, the proportion of female students (55 %) and graduates (59 %) exceeded that of male students, but men outnumbered women among PhD students and graduates (respectively 49 % and 46 %). Furthermore, climbing up the ladder of the academic career, women represented 44 % of the researchers with a PhD at the first grade of an academic career and only 20 % of the researchers at the top grade of an academic career.