Gender and Commercial Science: Women’s Patenting in the Life Sciences

Abstract

Traditional research on gender differences in productivity focuses on academic scientists, and rarely investigates outcomes other than publications. We investigate gender disparities in commercial outcomes, for scientists in both the academic and industrial sectors. Using a unique combination of career history data and patenting information across a period of two decades, we present descriptive statistics and graphical trends of male and female commercialization. Empirical evidence indicates that female scientists engage in and produce less commercial work then their male counterparts, and that the degree of disparity remains constant across time. The quality and impact of women’s commercial work remains the same or better than that of men scientists, however. These results imply that a necessary focus for future work is to understand the personal, structural, and organizational reasons for the filtering process which leads to such a small proportion of female inventors. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2005

The Effects of Gender on the Quality of University Patents and Public Research Centres in Andalusia: is it Better with a Female Presence?

“…However, the quality of patents whose authors are "solely women" is higher than patents whose authors are men or patents applied for jointly by men and women. Other studies, support this result, such as that done by Whittington & Smith-Doerr (2005). The main finding highlights that despite the fact that women patent less than men, the quality of their patents is better.…”

“…For our research it is impossible to do this, due to the low representation of patents applied for only by women. The research of Whittington & Smith-Doerr (2005) was centred on the inventors and the quality of their patents by gender, which means that comparison is not possible here either, because they are different units of analysis. These results are different from those obtained by Mariani & Romanelli (2007), although these authors analyse the inventor, not the patent, which means it is difficult to establish comparisons.…”

“…By analysing a group with the same composition, concluded that the trend to patent is 49% less for women than the level achieved by men. The research of Whittington & Smith-Doerr (2005); Whittington & Smith-Doerr (2008), also focus on the differences by gender between academics and industry in this area. The same topic has been analysed by the same author in all sectors (Whittington Bunker, 2006).…”

Career Advancement Through Academic Commercialization: Acknowledging and Reducing Barriers for Women Engineering Faculty

“…2 In addition to the disproportionate number of women involved in higher levels of the academy, women faculty are also much less likely to be involved in entrepreneurship or academic commercialization, compared to men. 7,15,31,32 Women also publish and patent less than men. In one study of a sample of 4227 STEM faculty, 6% of women and 13% of men hold at least one patent.…”

“…3,7,8,[12][13][14][15][16][17] This paper aims to synthesize relevant literature pertaining to impediments to academic commercialization and career advancement for women faculty in engineering and science. The purpose is to not only raise awareness of the likely origins of these issues, but to recommend ways that staff, faculty, departments, and universities can create a more equitable career trajectory for women faculty in engineering and science.…”