Three Polish universities are among the 10 best in the world with regard to the number of women researchers as authors of scientific publications. The University of Gdańsk has taken a very high fourth place, with first place taken by the Medical University of Lublin and seventh by the Poznan University of Medical Sciences. The gender diversity ratio was taken into consideration for the first time and the ranking was published by Nature Communications.
The Medical University of Lublin came first, the University of Gdańsk fourth, while seventh place was taken by the Poznan University of Medical Sciences amongst the first ten universities in the ranking for the participation of women in scientific publications in universities across the world, according to Nature Communications.
The University of Gdańsk ratio of 52.9 % means that women authors of published scientific achievements are in the majority.
Gender diversity ratio considered for the first time
The listing forms part of the CWTS Leiden Ranking 2019, held annually to assess the academic activity of universities across the world on the basis of the scientific publications of their staff. The gender diversity ratio was considered for the first time.
Women made up circa 30 % of all the authors of scientific publications published between 2014-2017 from among 963 universities considered in the ranking.
European universities, especially those from Central and Eastern Europe, can boast a greater participation of women when compared to universities in North America, as stressed by Ludo Waltman from the University of Leiden in Holland, whose team has devised the gender diversity ratio.
The best result in Poland, with first place in the ranking, was achieved by the Medical University of Lublin with 56% of female authorship in all publications. Subsequent places were taken by the State University of Maringá in Brazil (54.1%) and the University of Belgrade in Serbia (53.5%).
Seventh place went to the Poznan University of Medical Sciences (51%), with universities from Argentina and Portugal also featuring in the top ten. As many as 13 Polish universities were among the first 50 in the ranking – Wrocław Medical University in 12th place, Medical University of Lodz 13th, and 15th place taken by the Medical University of Warsaw.
According to the ranking’s authors, the dominance of universities from Central and Eastern Europe and South America was also visible in previous research. As stated by Cassida Sugimoto from Indiana University Bloomington (USA), researcher into gender inequality, this trend may be due to the fact that scientific professions are relatively low paid in these regions, which may result in men seeking jobs in other sectors.
According to Waltman, the analysis of data indicates that the global participation of women as authors of publications increased between 2006-2009 and 2014-2017 but by a mere 3%.
Technical universities have achieved significantly lower results with regard to gender diversity in publications when contrasted with universities with social sciences or biomedical courses. In line with statistics, women constitute only around 20% of research staff at engineering and scientific faculties, as suggested by Sugimoto.
Information on the achievement of Polish universities worldwide with regard to the number of women researchers as authors of scientific publications was provided by the portal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at https://poland.pl/ .
The article on the subject was prepared by the portal of the City of Gdańsk at https://www.gdansk.pl/.
