Only 9% of patents filed in the UK are by women, research from WISE has revealed.
“This growth is a glimmer of light. We need more companies to adopt best practice to create a truly gender balanced innovative landscape for the UK. There are many aspects to this from ensuring we have role models for girls to see women inventing things to changing the language used in recruitment.”
WISE has suggested ten steps to ensure companies are doing more to inspire girls into science, technology, engineering and maths careers.
Wollaston added: “In a survey last year, the only woman inventor people could name was Marie Curie, who discovered radium and polonium over 100 years ago. Where are today’s Marie Curies? We need to change this and so we are asking female entrepreneurs to step forward and volunteer to act as a role model with our People Like Me initiative.”
WISE is also encouraging companies to review their recruitment strategies, including the language used in job adverts and descriptions.
