Madrid
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In order to achieve full and equal access and participation in science for women and girls, the
General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) decided in 2016 to proclaim February 11 as the
International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
And it is that, at present, only one in three researchers worldwide are women and they represent just 28% of professionals who develop their careers in high and medium-high technology sectors. But if there is a sector within science that has broken this gender barrier, it is that of pharmaceutical industrywhich in recent years has become a benchmark for the integration of women in the field of R&D.
In the case of Spain, women today play a key role in innovative pharmaceutical laboratories. The profile of the professional dedicated to R&D in the pharmaceutical industry is predominantly female: two out of every three jobs in the research area of pharmaceutical companies are held by women, the highest figure of the entire productive fabric in our country.
The relevance of research in the pharmaceutical industry and the boost that this sector gives to female employment is reflected in the fact that one in four female researchers working in the Spanish industry does so in pharmaceutical companies.
In research and development tasks, the pharmaceutical industry already employs nearly 6,000 people in our country. These R&D departments stand out for the high qualification of their professionals. Thus, more than 80% of employees in this area are university graduateswhich represents a growth of almost 10 points in the last decade.
The female prevalence in the R&D area It even exceeds the already majority proportion of women in the pharmaceutical industry, who hold more than half of the jobs in a sector that stands out for its high quality and qualified employment. In Spain, apart from the innovative pharmaceutical industry and the clothing sector, no other productive sector exceeds 50% of female employment.
What motivated you to be researchers?
To encourage girls and women to work as researchers in the pharmaceutical industry, a group of female researchers and scientists from companies associated with Pharmaindustry participated, along with male colleagues, in the campaign #InnovateForYouwhere in the first person and through these short videos they tell what their motivations were for dedicating themselves to researching new drugs.
