Women make up 43% of researchers in Russia vs 29% worldwide

Women make up 43% of researchers in Russia versus 29% worldwide, Russian Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education, Grigory Trubnikov, said on Thursday at a session of experts in the format of the Second Eurasian Women’s Forum.

"Women constitute 29% of all scientists worldwide, and here in Russia the indicator is 43%," he said. "Compare it with 39% in the UK, 28% in Germany and 16% in Japan."

Along with it, Trubnikov said that Russia had a bigger number of women with university degrees per thousand than men - 339 and 264 respectively.

"I’d say we need to bring more young men than young women to universities now," he said.

Female postgraduate students make up about a half of all researchers in Russia, Trubnikov went on, adding, "We have about 7,000 women with the doctoral degrees and some 34,000 women who are candidates of science [an intermediary degree between the master and the doctor in the Russian system of degrees in science and research - TASS]."

The minister also mentioned the strong positions that women had in the Russian system of education. "If you take the corps of lecturers at our universities, 57% of them are women and this indicator is much higher in Russia than in many developed countries," he said.

On this background, he pointed out the rather small percentage of women among the authors of articles published at Russian research magazines - just 21% of the total. "That’s in fact a point for us to think over, and the situation in the sphere of patents is very much the same."

The Second Eurasian Women’s Forum is held in St Petersburg from September 19 through September 21. Its main motto is ‘Women for Global Security and Steady Development’. TASS is the information partner of the event.