Equity for Women in Science

At this Fred Jevons lecture Dr Cassidy Sugimoto will explore the gender gap in science and technology, and what can be done to address it.

Equity for Women in Science

If current trends continue, women and men will be equally represented in the field of biology in 2069. In physics, math, and engineering, women should not expect to reach parity for more than a century.

The gender gap in science and technology is narrowing, but at a decidedly unimpressive pace. And even if parity is achievable, what about equity? This talk will present a large-scale empirical analysis of the global gender gap in science, providing strong evidence that the structures of scientific production and reward impede women’s career advancement. Cassidy Sugimoto and her co-author Vincent Larivière detail the evidence for this gap and outline possible solutions in their new book Equity for Women in Science, to be published by Harvard in March 2023.

The evidence is drawn from publication and survey data and shows that women are systematically denied the chief currencies of scientific credit: publications and citations. The rising tide of collaboration only exacerbates disparities, with women unlikely to land coveted leadership positions or gain access to global networks. The findings are unequivocal: when published, men are positioned as key contributors and women are relegated to low-visibility technical roles.

The talk will conclude with a discussion of how intersecting disparities in labour, reward, and resources contribute to cumulative disadvantages for the advancement of women in science and what might be done to mitigate this.

Joining Cassidy on the panel will be Anna Scaife, Professor of Radio Astronomy, The University of Manchester and Dawn Edge, Professor Mental Health & Inclusivity, The University of Manchester.

Cassidy Sugimoto

Sugimoto was a professor of Informatics in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University Bloomington from 2010-2021 and served as the Program Director for the Science of Science and Innovation Policy program at the National Science Foundation from 2018-2020. She has received the Indiana University Trustees Teaching award (2014), a national service award from the Association for Information Science and Technology (2009), and a Bicentennial Award for service from Indiana University (2020).

She holds a bachelor’s in Music Performance, a master’s in Library Science, and a doctoral degree in Information and Library Science all from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Fred Jevons Lecture

The Fred Jevons Science Policy Lecture commemorates the founding professor of ‘Liberal Studies in Science’ at Manchester.

Manchester has long been a major centre for social, economic and historical studies of science and technology, a history consolidated by the establishment of a Department of Liberal Studies in Science in the 1960s. That scholarly tradition is today maintained by LSS’s successor centres, the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, and the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, which collectively constitute one of the world’s major centres of expertise in the social, historical, economic and political analysis of science and technology.

Opening the lecture will be Luke Georghiou, Deputy President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Manchester and Professor of Science and Technology Policy and Management in the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research at the Alliance Manchester Business School. Carsten Timmermann, Professor of History of Science, Technology & Medicine, Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM), will facilitate the lecture.

There will be refreshments served with the opportunity for networking before the lecture from 4:15pm.