Previous studies show that women’s research receives less credit and recognition from their academic peers but have yet to examine if gender inequality plays a role in how inventors treat research conducted by women. Image: Shutterstock

A recent report on CEOs at S&P 500 companies found that women are just as, if not more, qualified than their male counterparts. Despite this, women remain starkly underrepresented in leadership roles, as well as in sectors including AI, STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and research and innovation.

Do these disparities extend to breakthrough ideas? Previous studies show that women’s research receives less credit and recognition from their academic peers but have yet to examine if gender inequality plays a role in how inventors treat research conducted by women. Our paper, published in Administrative Science Quarterly, addresses this gap by examining whether gender inequality impacts the influence of women’s ideas in technology development.

How ideas translate into impact

In principle, inventors should seek out the most promising scientific ideas, since the quality of those ideas is directly related to the success of their inventions. In practice, however, other factors besides quality might matter. 

A key reason is the sheer challenge of identifying good ideas amid the deluge of scientific papers published annually. Some inventors may favour research conducted closer to where they are based, in relevant hubs or from specific institutions. Beyond this, the identity of the idea’s creator – be it their standing in the academic community or demographic characteristics (e.g. gender) can affect how others view their work.

For women, certain factors can impede this process. The underrepresentation of female scientists in academia might lead to their research being less salient and visible. They could have fewer resources or weaker social networks, limiting the exposure of their work within the inventor community, or they may approach similar research in different ways from men, such as by using different language or research styles.Read More

Inventors may also respond differently to research authored by women. Gender acts as a powerful cultural frame, shaping beliefs about individual competence. Research shows that products created by women are evaluated less favourably than identical products by men. This devaluation is also observed in the realm of entrepreneurship.

If gendered status beliefs are indeed present in science-based innovation, this could result in inventors paying less attention to and undervaluing women’s scientific ideas – with significant implications for technology development.

Also read: AI may reproduce gender, ethnicity biases in mental health tools 

Gender inequality and innovation

We chose to examine patent-to-paper citations as a measure of the flow of knowledge from academia to inventors. When inventors submit an application to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, they include citations to relevant scientific publications. These can be seen as bibliometric fossils of sorts, recording inventors’ reliance on scientific ideas over time.

If, as we hypothesised, inventors rely more on male-authored research, we should observe that scientific publications receive fewer citations in US patents if their main........

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