Gender in the Portugal Research Arena: A Case Study in European Leadership

Over the last two decades, Portugal has exhibited the largest percentage increase in women’s representation — an impressive 10% — putting the country at the leading edge of closing the gender gap in research.

Gender in the Portugal Research Arena: A Case Study in European Leadership opens in new tab/window offers a data-led look at the dynamics underlying Portugal’s leading edge. At the same time, it points to persisting gender gaps in research that require stronger transformative efforts, and it reveals how these gaps tend to mimic and perpetuate structural inequalities between women and men.

Together with distinguished academic leaders in Portugal, we have worked to put into context quantitative analyses with policy perspectives, insights and best practices. We hope to contribute insights from the experience of one country to inform policy and inspire targeted initiatives among policymakers, research leaders and funders around the world to achieve gender equity in research.

Key findings

• Women represent nearly 50% of active authors in Portugal — the closest to gender parity for all EU28 countries analyzed

• Women are highly represented across the life sciences and health sciences fields, where gains in Portugal continue to be largest, and in chemistry, chemical engineering and psychology

• They remain most underrepresented within the physical sciences, especially in fields related to data science and AI such as computer science, mathematics and engineering

• In Portugal, women are most highly represented among first authors, indicative of greater gender representation for early-career researchers

  • Also, unlike the trend seen in other countries, women researchers are likely to continue publishing over time, thus remaining in research

Portugal’s leadership is the result of many deliberate steps, the result of specific policy initiatives and a coordinated approach to targeted interventions. Such efforts are combined with a longstanding commitment to strong early education STEM interventions and research on gender equality, as well as funding to implement work-life balance and gender equity plans.