An innovation without women is an insufficient innovation: although things have evolved a lot, there is also much to do in the Innovation sector, key for the economy and society. It is one of the conclusions reached by the participants in the colloquium organized in the editorial office by elDiario.es in collaboration with Acciona. The general secretary of Innovation of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Teresa Riesgo, the researcher at the Margarita Salas Biological Research Center of the CSIC, and CEO of the technology-based company of that same organization Atenea Biotech, Nuria Campillo, and the director of Acciona’s Digital Innovation Hub, Carmen Camuñas, have discussed some of the measures needed to move forward.
One of them: provide more women as references for girls and boys, bring out of invisibility scientists and researchers who were key but who have fallen into oblivion, from Ada Lovelace to Hedy Lamarr. “Many of the initiatives that are being carried out are talks in middle school and high school. I think that’s arriving late, very late. We have to put more emphasis on primary school. It is good that they see that women also work in innovation, in engineering,” said Carmen Camuñas, from Acciona, who has insisted on “promoting concern” from childhood and rethinking the way in which innovation is transmitted in schools and institutes.
Stereotypes and gender roles also continue to be a hindrance to equality in innovation. Girls, pointed out the Secretary General of Innovation, begin to feel insecure at five or six years old, and ambition is a quality well regarded in men but that still penalizes women. Teresa Riesgo has warned about “hate speeches” towards people who disseminate science and innovation and that discourage participation and public exposure. “In addition, when these people are women, what happens is that hate speech becomes an insult and a threat of such caliber on a personal level that many of them say ‘I’ll get out of here’,” has added.
The unequal distribution of care tasks influences the careers of women and men, also in this sector. CSIC researcher Nuria Campillo spoke of the “scissors graph” that has not changed significantly in recent years: “The number of predoctoral and postdoctoral students, women and men, is practically the same, even in women it is a little more. But then, when we move to the stable scale of scientists and researchers, the scissors open completely.” That is, as we advance in the scale of positions and responsibilities, men increase and women decrease or disappear. Campillo explained that the same thing happens with patent holders. Although there are now more women than before, they still represent around 20% of holders.
In this sense, the director of Acciona’s Digital Innovation Hub, Carmen Camuñas, has explained that her company’s 50/50 program seeks precisely to analyze jobs that are highly masculinized in order to change and “attract the talent of women.” . “In fact, we increasingly see many more women in engineering positions, and before it was impossible to see women directing large-scale projects,” he stated.
Some data has also appeared in the conversations. For example, that 80% of new companies startups that are created in Spain and Europe are founded by men and 20% by women. “It is something very important because those will be the companies of the future,” stressed Teresa Riesgo, who spoke of the “distrust” with which investors continue to view women. Nuria Campillo has focused on the same issue by pointing out that the type of questions asked of entrepreneurs in financing rounds focus more on the “risks of the project” instead of on projection or leadership, something in which emphasis is placed on their case.
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