WIPO Report: The Global Gender Gap in Innovation and Creativity

Authors Elodie Carpentier and Julio Raffo published a 2023 report as part of the WIPO Development Studies, in collaboration with Invent Together, titled “The Global Gender Gap in Innovation and Creativity” in an international comparison of the gender gap in global patenting over the last two decades.

This report analyzes women’s participation in international patent applications between 1999 and 2020 and finds that women are involved in only 23% of all applications, representing 13% of all inventors listed. Women’s participation in patenting varies across regions, sectors, and industries, with higher representation in biotechnology, food chemistry, and pharmaceuticals, and lower in mechanical engineering. Women inventors are more prevalent in academia than in the private sector, and typically work in mostly-male teams or alone. Achieving gender parity will require significant effort, with an estimated target year of 2061 based on current trends.

Click here for the full report.