A recently-published research has established the link between gender disparities and fewer women PhD students turning into inventors. The study found how women’s capacity to innovate and make a breakthrough remains undervalued.
The research by MIT Sloan School of Management and Copenhagen Business School investigated the training of PhD students aimed at understanding the pipeline and preparation of new inventors, as per news reports.
Reports quoting the study pointed out that PhDs in STEM were rich human capital, and about 60% of them were employed outside universities. The group comprises top contributors to commercial science through patenting, said the report.
The research studied if PhD students start their careers as inventors early, filing their first patent during doctoral studies. While 4% of PhD students at the top 25 universities ranked by patenting became new inventors, the probability of them filing their first patent increased to 23% when mentored by a top inventor.
The research found that female STEM doctoral students were less likely to become new inventors when compared to their male counterparts during the training phase.
“We found that the female share of new inventors was nine percentage points lower than the female share of PhD graduates in our university sample,” news reports quoted the researcher as saying. The researcher added that the inventor gender gap was stark initially in the career pipeline of PhDs.
The paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, titled “Faculty as Catalysts for Training New Inventors: Differential Outcomes for Male and Female Ph.D. Students,” found how advisors were critical in training new inventors. Faculty advisors who are also top inventors motivated their advisees to become new inventors through co-patenting.
The researchers focused on the role of faculty advisors in training the next generation of inventors. The gender gap in the likelihood of first patenting was exacerbated when a student’s advisor was not a top inventor.
The research revealed that female PhDs had a 21% lower likelihood of being matched with advisors who are top inventors than male PhDs. Even after they were matched, they were approximately 17% less likely than their male PhD. counterparts to become new inventors, added the study.
The reports on the study quoted researchers pointing to a ‘leaky pipeline’ of female inventors-to-be, despite the women entering the labs of top inventor advisors at top universities. The findings have a significant impact on inclusive innovation in STEM fields and for the startups and large corporations that hire these talented students.
The researchers also said that the findings reiterated the belief that women’s innovation skills and contributions are somewhat undervalued by advisors. “Even in the same lab with the same advisor and in similar fields, female PhDs have a lower probability of patenting,” they said.
