Women, innovation and health. An impossible cocktail?

Recent research works that cover different branches of medical knowledge and different countries with different degrees of development show that, of the STEMM careers (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine), Medicine is the one that registers the most gender discrimination rate. high of all.

Healthcare women have a higher proportion of part-time jobs and fewer hours than men, and therefore also earn a lower professional salary. These women report not feeling recognized or supported by their colleagues or superiors, and have less satisfaction with their careers, which in part leads to a lower proportion of women occupying supervisory or leadership positions, and certainly a higher proportion of professional dropouts.

Few female doctors acknowledge having a mentor and knowing female leaders, and up to 40% (vs 1% of men) report that they felt the need to mentor and advise others for the simple fact of being women. A form of sorority that has been shown to be effective in boosting the professional career of women.

However, and despite the legislative changes, especially in labor and conciliation matters, implemented in some countries to favor women in healthcare, there have not yet been enough changes in attitudes or behavior in the workplace, which is why the situation has not changed substantially in the last 30 years.

At an academic level, the scene is not very different. The first thing that stands out is that in Spain 69% of undergraduate biosanitary students are women and, however, this proportion falls as the level of studies progresses, to the point that women only represent 12%. among civil servant teaching positions in the branches of health sciences. Among the obstacles that are mentioned we find gender bias in the evaluation of results, lack of collaboration and influence, inequality in the possibilities of access to work, difficulties to reconcile and a long etcetera, according to the review carried out by Segovia-Saiz et al.. In the article Glass ceiling and gender inequalities in the professional career of women academics and researchers in biomedical sciences.

Our country has a large number of researchers in absolute figures, well ahead of other European countries, in which women represent more than 60%, and this figure continues to grow. However, few women are responsible for the research group and, when scientific production comes, only 34% of them sign as first author.. On the other hand, the proportion of articles with a male senior author in the journals with the greatest impact reaches 75% and their works also obtain a greater number of bibliographic citations.. Thus, it is not surprising that, among the lists of highly cited authors in the biosanitary areas, women represent only 16%, and, in particular, in Medicine, a meager 11%.. Once again, among the obstacles mentioned in an international systematic review posed by Hirayama and Fernando, we find here the tension between individuals, the tension with the collective dimension of research and, above all, problems with time management long term.

Despite the fact that, as we said, our country has a much higher mass of women researchers than most neighboring countries, the representation of women also falls markedly in terms of innovation.. And it is that Spain has the greatest distance in all of Europe between the number of women who are dedicated to research and those who work in innovation. That is why it is not surprising that the percentage of women who have made the leap towards the business productive fabric, in our country, is minimal, not exceeding 20%..

If we analyze the evolution of innovation in the last 30 years, we find that the gender gap persists over time in all complementary methods of intellectual property protection, be they design rights, patents, utility models or trademarks. Women are also less unique inventors or designers and more likely team members..

There are great opportunities for companies in the Valencian Community (CV) to market innovative solutions applied to medical problems. And, in fact, according to the indicators of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT), more than 20% of all scientific production generated in our community is related to health sciences.. On the other hand, in 2019, 17.6% of the companies in the CV carried out innovative activities, a figure that exceeds the Spanish average (16.4%).. However, if we take all the above data into account, very few of these innovative solutions will involve our women, which can only mean a great loss of talent and productive capacity, with the consequent economic and social repercussions on all of us as citizens.

The Smart Specialization Strategy of the CV points out three key specialization parameters: 1) Increase the number of innovation personnel in the company, especially in the service sector, facilitating university-company collaboration and encouraging the hiring of R&D personnel; 2) Study the skills demanded by the CV job market in the areas of intelligent specialization to guide training, especially STEMM and technological professional training; and 3) Promote professional training in the skills demanded by the productive sectors..

If we take into account that, according to research led by the Polytechnic University of Valencia, female biomedical scientists tend to create more diverse mediation networks and triads than men, and that women are more likely to access non-redundant knowledge and perspectives of richer research through their roles as intermediaries in the flow of knowledge, so why not make their job easier?

In 2019, the Women, Science and Innovation Observatory was launched in Spain, an inter-ministerial collegiate body to analyze and measure the impact of the situation of women in research, development and innovation, the fruit of which has materialized in the recent publication Women and Innovation 2022. This body aims to promote the implementation of public policies and actions in these areas to end the visible and invisible obstacles to real and effective gender equality..

In reality, it is a multifactorial phenomenon whereby women in the healthcare fields become invisible in the middle of their careers, and the solution lies, in part, in prioritizing quality over efficiency, especially if they are not we want to lose talent. A talent that, in the biomedical area, begins by representing up to 69% of undergraduate students. Many other measures, some of great political and social significance, will be necessary, but at least we are happy about recent regulatory reforms such as those introduced by the new Law on Science, Technology and Innovation to get closer to equality.

*María Isabel Acién Sánchez is Head of Section of Gynecology at the Hospital Universitario San Juan de Alicante and Professor at the University Miguel Hernández of Elche

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