Spain, the fourth European country with the most female inventors

The European Patent Office (EPO) has published this Tuesday a study in which the female presence in innovation is analyzed and which concludes that only 13.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
07 November 2022 Monday 23:39
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Spain, the fourth European country with the most female inventors

The European Patent Office (EPO) has published this Tuesday a study in which the female presence in innovation is analyzed and which concludes that only 13.2% of all inventors in the European Union are women.

The study was based on the percentage of female inventors named in all patent applications received by the EPO from 1978 to 2019. The analysis shows a significant improvement in the presence of women at the forefront of innovation in the period analyzed, by to go from a scarce 2% at the end of the 70s to 13.2% registered in 2019. But far from triumphalism, the OEP denounces that "a strong gender gap continues to exist".

A gap that is aggravated if you take into account their position when they are part of a team of inventors. The report states that "women are found more often in teams of inventors than as individual inventors, although the data indicates that they tend to occupy less relevant positions in these teams."

Taking into account only the volume of women and not their level of relevance, Europe is far from the world leaders. The country with the most women inventors is South Korea, with 28.3%, followed by China with 26.8%, and the United States with 15%.

Spain stands out in the ranking as the fourth country with the highest rate of women inventors in Europe, with 23.6%, only surpassed by those registered in Latvia (30.6%), Portugal (26.8%) and Croatia ( 25.8%).

By region, Illes Balears, with 29.8% of women inventors, is the most outstanding Spanish community and also places it on the podium of the European regions with the highest percentages of women, occupying third place.

In second place in Spain are the Community of Madrid and Aragon, with 24.7% of female inventors, closely followed by Galicia (24.5%) and Andalusia (23.9%). The Spanish regions with the lowest percentages are La Rioja (14.4%) and Canarias (16.3%).

Levels, in any case higher than those of the worst positioned countries in Europe, which are Germany (10%), Luxembourg (10%), Liechtenstein (9.6%) and Austria (8.0%), which have the highest shares casualties of women inventors.

“This report sheds new light on the contribution of women to technological innovation and on the gaps that need to be closed to harness the full potential of women inventors in Europe. While some progress has been made in recent decades, more efforts are needed to drive inclusion in the patent arena. Promoting women's access to science and innovation continues to be a major challenge for Europe, as well as a key factor for our future sustainability and competitiveness," said António Campinos, President of the EPO.

Beyond the countries, the OEP has carried out the analysis by sectors between 2010 and 2019. The technological area with the highest rate of female inventors in Spain is chemistry (with 37.1% women compared to 22.4% in Europe), while the electrical engineering sector presents more conservative percentages (only 11.7% of women in Spain and 5.2% in Europe).

The report also underlines that patent applications from universities and public research entities have a significantly higher proportion of female inventors (33.3% in Spain and 19.4% in Europe in 2010 and 2019) than those filed by companies. private where the percentage is 18.3% in Spain compared to the European average of 10%.