When Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize for her research on economic governance in 2009, it was the first (and so far, the only) time a woman won a Nobel for Economics. That prize has 1 for nearly 50 years. We don't do a great job of recognizing women's contributions to science and innovation. My colleagues and I wondered: Is one of the reasons why women are more likely to 2 science than men because they don't receive the same recognition?
To understand how 3 shapes women's motivation to remain in science, we first had to get a good measure of the motivations. We sought to first study a highly visible 4, prizes, because large prizes tend to be understood and appreciated by the broader public, and they also influence those who make decisions about scientific 5 and other financial support.
Our study focused on prizes in the biomedical sciences. If we're going to find 6 anywhere in science, it would be in this field. Women have entered biomedicine in equal numbers to men since the early 2000s. 7 this, of all Nobels awarded to women, a full two-thirds have been for biomedical research. Our 8 was simple: we documented all biomedical research prizes we could find over the past five decades. We also considered the financial awards and importance associated with the prizes, as indicators of their 9. Then we measured the percentage of prizes won by women and the association between gender and prize quality.
Our initial results highlighted overall10 news: the proportion of biomedical prizes awarded to women has risen steadily. But when we looked at the association between gender and quality of prizes awarded, we observed a major difference: on average, women scientists win prizes associated with less money and importance than men do. Importantly, our further research suggests that there's no 11 that the quality or value of women-led research is any lower than that of men, as measured by citations (引用) per article, productivity, or width of research topics studied. 12, women are catching up in terms of number of prizes won, but still fall significantly behind in regard to the importance and monetary awards associated with the prizes.
The bottom line: while on the surface it may appear that the gender gap has somewhat13 when it comes to science prizes, great injustice is hidden just below. The problem likely 14 beyond the borders of science. In business, for example, prizes and funding for new technology and innovation may follow a similar pattern, helping to explain the phenomenon observed for female entrepreneurs, again 15 by research. This is something worth examining in greater depth.
