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Women already helped in industry during World War II (1939)
Portugal has a high percentage of women in inventor teams, compared to the European average, according to an international study that, however, warns of the female “talent drain” and consequent underrepresentation in patented discoveries and startups.
Portugal is the European country with the highest percentage of women among inventors. This is revealed by a report “Promoting women in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) – A data-based assessment of the gender gap in the European innovation ecosystem” published this Tuesday by the European Patent Organization (OEP).
The study shows that there are more and more women inventors with patent applications, but they remain a minority. In Portugal, out of every 100 inventors, only 30 are women (29.3%).
However, in Europe, the average drops to 13.8%.
Portugal appears in first place, followed by Spain, in a list of 22 countries, in which the Germany, Hungary and Austria appear in the last placeswith rates around 10%.
In recent decades, the female presence in inventive teams has grown, but “very slowly”, argues Cristina MargaridoOEP patent examiner.
Female “talent drain”
The study warns of a “talent drain”, as there is cThere are more and more women pursuing degrees in STEM areas, which are disappearing as you advance in your career. Among those with doctorates, few researchers register patents or create technological companies (startups).
“This pattern suggests that Women face increasingly pronounced barriers in advancing careers linked to STEM and driven by technology”, highlights the president of OEP, Antonio Campinos.
For António Campinos, “Europe cannot afford to leave talent on the sidelines”, especially because there is potential for innovation that remains unexplored.
Men continue to dominate space
The idea is corroborated by Cristina Margarido, who was surprised by the high percentage of exclusively male startups: “We have a lot of mixed groups doing research and development, but then the founders of technology companies are almost all men.”
The study says that only one in ten founders is female. Here too, Portugal and Spain stand out on a positive note: In Spain, 19.2% of startups have women among their founders and in Portugal they are 15.7%.
In Europe, only 13.5% of startups with patents have at least one female founder. All others – more than 85% – are made up only of men.
Cristina Margarido says that women’s inventive potential is comparable to that of men, but their patents have far fewer claims and fewer citations.
Scientists awarded and interviewed for the study admitted that “as they go up, They have no one to encourage or promote them”, he said.
The report also highlights barriers when opening a company. The team behind the report heard stories from women who said that when they were looking for funding, they were “often the only woman in the room”.
“It will be more likely that the nine men who are there will give financial support to a startup represented by men with whom they have more in common,” explained Cristina Margarido.
Furthermore, in some areas, such as biomedicine, women develop studies with a greater propensity to solve problems related to women, while women Men’s patents tend to focus on male problems.
Therefore, recalled the OEP spokesperson, a an all-male team can develop a product with a gender bias because there are problems that are invisible to them and that is why they do not solve thembecause for them they do not exist.
One case that became charismatic was that of the dummies used for car testing. At first, only male models were used until they realized that women had much more problems in car accidents because no tests had been carried out with female models.
Still, the world is changing
Despite everything, the numbers show that the European reality has changed, with more and more more women among scientists and startup founders.
The Portuguese scientist Elvira Fortunato (minister of science, technology and higher education, between 2022 and 2024) told Lusa to notice this evolution in the corridors of universities and in laboratories, a change now shown in numbers in the report.
“The percentage of European patent applications naming at least one woman as inventor has increased from less than 4% around 1980, to 21.6% in 2019 and 24.1% in 2022.”
Currently, women are much more present in research in the areas of pharmaceutical industry (34,9%), biotechnology (34,2%) e food chemistry (32,3%).
On the other hand, in the areas of machine tools (5.7%), basic communication processes (5.5%) and mechanical elements (4.9%), their presence continues to be almost residual, according to the study.
