A sample-size’s worth of women in science hold leadership positions, meaning fewer talented women are helping to shape policy and run academies and institutions, according to a new report from the International Science Council.
Despite a steady uptick of women working in science fields since 2015, they represented just 19% of members of national academies in 2025. And among 50 national academies surveyed, only 20% currently have a woman president – up from just 17% in 2015, but unchanged since 2020.
This is on top of the significant gender gap that persists at all levels of the science, technology, engineering and math disciplines. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted the need for more women in STEM on International Day of Women and Girls in Science last Wednesday.
“Excluding women from science weakens our collective capacity to address urgent global challenges, from climate change to public health to space security,” Guterres said in a statement.
According to the UN, women represent just 26% of the workforce in data and artificial intelligence, and just 12% of the workforce in cloud computing.
And according to the International Science Council report, women are more than three times as likely as men to report barriers to advancement, and 4.5 times more likely to miss out on opportunities due to caretaking obligations. Across disciplines and organizations, women are also more likely to report experiences of harassment.
The authors recommend reforming institutional nomination and selection processes so that more qualified women are put forward for senior leadership positions.
Marie-Françoise Roy, Emerita Professor of Mathematics at Université de Rennes in France and a co-author of the report, said members of the science community need to open their eyes to the gender disparity that still persists, as another part of the solution.
“Our report shows that male scientists remain more satisfied with the situation in terms of gender balance and … misconduct than female scientists,” she said, according to University World News. “Inside scientific organizations and in society, listening to what women have to say is key for positive change.”
