Fresh research indicates that gender inequalities curtail opportunities for female Ph.D. students aspiring to become emerging innovators.
Within the innovation-driven economy, those holding STEM Ph.D.s play a pivotal role as a vital pool of human resources. Close to 60% of STEM Ph.D. holders, spanning disciplines like engineering, chemistry, and biology, are engaged in roles beyond academia. This demographic is progressively making substantial contributions to applied science by actively participating in patent activities. A fresh study conducted jointly by MIT Sloan School of Management and Copenhagen Business School has delved into the education of these Ph.D. candidates, aiming to gain deeper insights into the trajectory and readiness of emerging innovators.
Carried out by Fiona Murray, who holds the position of professor at MIT Sloan and serves as the associate dean for Innovation and Inclusion, along with Mercedes Delgado, an associate professor specializing in Strategy and Innovation at Copenhagen Business School and a research affiliate at MIT, the study centered around the inquiry of whether Ph.D. candidates initiate their journeys as inventors by initiating patent applications during their doctoral studies.
In the research article titled “Faculty’s Influence on Nurturing Novel Inventors: Disparate Outcomes for Male and Female Ph.D. Candidates,” which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Delgado and Murray made significant discoveries. They revealed that mentors of Ph.D. students have a pivotal role in shaping emerging innovators. Faculty members who have established themselves as prominent inventors act as catalysts, motivating their mentees to embark on the path of inventiveness through joint patenting efforts. While a mere four percent of Ph.D. candidates from the leading 25 universities, as per patent records, transition into new inventors, this probability spikes to 23% when they are guided by faculty who are distinguished inventors themselves.
A noteworthy revelation from this study is that, over the course of their doctoral training, female Ph.D. students in STEM fields exhibit a lower likelihood of evolving into new inventors compared to their male counterparts.
“Does the prospect of becoming an inventor while pursuing a Ph.D. hold the same accessibility for both female and male students? This is an aspect that hasn’t been explored previously, and the succinct response is ‘no,'” Delgado remarked.
She went on, “Our investigation unveiled that the proportion of newly emerged female inventors was deficient by nine percentage points in comparison to the ratio of female Ph.D. graduates within our university sample. This implies that even at the initial stages of the Ph.D. career trajectory, there exists a gender disparity in inventors that surpasses what one would anticipate considering the percentage of female students undertaking STEM Ph.D. programs.”
In an effort to gain deeper insights into this disparity, the researchers directed their attention toward the influence of faculty mentors. This focus emerged because instances where advisors and Ph.D. students collaborate as co-inventors on projects stemming from a laboratory are a vital avenue for students to acquire the skills necessary for patenting and initiating their journey as inventors.
Faculty advisors who are distinguished inventors themselves constituted 44% of all new inventor Ph.D.s within the study’s dataset. This statistic underscores their pivotal role in shaping the upcoming cohort of inventors. Furthermore, the discrepancy in the probability of filing a first patent was magnified when a student’s advisor did not hold the status of a prominent inventor.
“Putting this in stark terms: female Ph.D. candidates face a 21% diminished chance of being paired with advisors of top inventor status compared to their male counterparts. Furthermore, even when such pairings occur, female Ph.D.s are approximately 17% less likely than their male peers to transition into new inventors,” Murray elaborated.
She went on to explain, “This essentially signifies the existence of a ‘leaky pipeline’ for prospective female inventors, even when these accomplished women secure positions in the labs of distinguished inventor advisors at leading universities. Unsurprisingly, these revelations hold significant ramifications for cultivating an all-encompassing culture of innovation in STEM fields, and more broadly, for startups and major corporations that recruit these exceptionally talented students.”
While no single causative factor can be pinpointed, the researchers outline a range of elements in their paper that might contribute to this divergent outcome. These factors are categorized into “supply-side” and “demand-side” variables. Supply-side factors entail potential dissimilarities between female and male advisees in aspects such as patenting preferences, self-assessment of skills, or access to resources.
The researchers identified no discernible disparities in the subject matter of theses pursued by male and female students that could potentially contribute to reduced patentability. Regarding the demand-side factors, Murray highlighted, “Our findings consistently point to the fact that advisors tend to somewhat undervalue the innovation skills and contributions of women.” She further observed that, “Even in scenarios where the lab, the advisor, and the fields are comparable, female Ph.D. candidates exhibit a reduced likelihood of engaging in patenting.”
As of now, the research initiative has not yet evaluated the efficacy of various interventions. However, the study suggests several interventions that could potentially amplify the count of female emerging inventors. For instance, there’s a proposition to enhance comprehension of the advisor-advisee matching procedure, aiming to ensure that a greater number of women receive training from top inventor advisors. Additionally, the encouragement of female faculty members to participate actively in prolific patenting could bolster the pool of prominent female inventor advisors available to future doctoral candidates.
Early education in patenting and the realms of commercial science assumes heightened significance due to the potential accumulative advantages these individuals could accrue over time through such exposure.
“Consider the scenario where you become an emerging inventor while pursuing your Ph.D. studies,” Delgado proposed. “We believe that this could—subject to further exploration in our subsequent research—yield enduring effects because once you step into an organization post-graduation, equipped with a grasp of commercial science, your inventiveness during your career could be even more prolific.”
Murray emphasized, “By furnishing greater opportunities and enhanced access to supplementary training and practical familiarity with the patenting process and other entrepreneurial endeavors for all Ph.D. candidates, with a particular emphasis on women, we can enhance innovation across our economies, a facet that holds heightened significance in an era where national competitiveness hinges on innovation.”
