A new analysis finds that women are still less likely to win major research prizes than men, Nature News reports.
It adds that the gap has shrunk, but not closed. For the analysis, Lokman Meho from the American University of Beirut examined the recipients of 141 international research prizes between 2001 and 2020. As he reports in Quantitative Science Studies, he found an increase over time in female researchers' share of prestigious prizes, but that that share still lagged behind that of male researchers. For instance, women won 6 percent of prizes between 2001 and 2005 and then 19 percent between 2016 and 2020.
"We are moving in the right direction, although slowly," Meho tells Nature News.
Nature News adds that groups like the Royal Society UK, the American Geophysical Union, and others have taken measures to improve representation. But still, Hans Petter Graver, president of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, which administers the Abel and Kavli prizes, tells it that the findings suggest such institutions need "to do more for diversity."