Abstract
Women are under-represented in science, but their presence is especially low in industrial research and in activities related to technological innovation. Spanish technological activity by gender is analyzed in this chapter through the study of patent applications with at least one Spanish inventor filed with the European Patent Office (EPO) during a 9-year period. Only 16% of the inventors are women, just 24% of patents have at least one female inventor and this figure slumps to 11% in fractional count terms. Women tend to appear in cross-gender teams and an uneven distribution of female inventors across institutional sectors and thematic fields is observed. The significant gender gap in patenting activity described in this study is narrowing over the years, but the progress is very slow. Gender imbalances unfavorable to women in research are not self-correcting phenomena and policy measures are needed to promote female participation. The collection of sex-disaggregated indicators on patenting activity is useful to monitor female presence, to identify inequalities by fields and sectors, and to assess the effectiveness of policy interventions.
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Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support provided by the Spanish Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs for the conduct of this study (I + D+I 87/02).
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Mauleón, E., Bordons, M. (2017). Patenting Activity in Spain: A Gender Perspective. In: Wynarczyk, P., Ranga, M. (eds) Technology, Commercialization and Gender. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49923-9_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49923-9_4
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