2016 Monitoring Report: Main Findings
The latest 2016 Monitoring Report shows that research in the Czech Republic fails to use the potential of highly qualified women. The trend of percentage of women increasing in all levels of study and the percentage of women in research remaining the same continues.
Employees in Research and Development
The overall number of employees in research and development is increasing. A growing number was also observed within individual professions: researcher, technician, and other positions in research and development.
• The number of employees in research and development totalled 99 874 people in 2016 (65 783 FTEs), including 30 268 women.
Men are more numerous in all research and development professions, and their share is increasing.
Women made up 30.3 % (28.4 % of FTEs) of all positions in research and development in 2016,o 26.6 % of researchers;
• 30.8 % of technicians;
• 44.1 % of other professions.
Researchers
Researchers account for 56.2 % of all employees in research and development with 56 177 people in 2016 (37 338 FTEs).
• About one in four researchers was female in 2016 (26.6 %; 23.1 % of FTEs).
The share of women displays a stable decreasing trend, with the number in 2016 being the lowest since the start of the monitoring in 2000.
International comparison places the Czech Republic among EU countries with the lowest share of women in research positions.
Ideal and Typical Career Path in Research
48.5 % of researchers in the Czech Republic have a university degree (BS, MS equivalent) and 41.8 % have a doctoral degree (2015).
In 2016, there were:
• 69 775 female graduate students (59.7 %) and 47 199 male graduate students (40.3 %);
• 12 551 female postgraduate students (46.8 %) and 14 249 male postgraduate students (53.2 %).
The proportion of women in graduate university programmes has remained roughly stable over the last 10-11 years (ca 60 % in 2016), but the share of female doctoral students displays a growing trend (currently nearly 47 %). These trends, however, have little effect on the situation in research: The highest dropout of women happens in the postdoctoral phase and later.
Women in STEM are under-represented at all levels of their academic and professional careers from the graduate level on. Their dropout among doctoral and postdoctoral researchers is more intense than in other fields.
In the agricultural sciences, medicine, the social sciences and humanities, women prevail over men on graduate and doctoral levels, but men are more numerous in research professions.
International comparison shows the number of female university graduates in the Czech Republic roughly matches the EU average, but the number of female fresh doctors falls below the EU average.
Researchers by Field
More than two in three researchers in the Czech Republic work in STEM: technology and engineering (38 %) and the natural sciences (30 %). The number of women in STEM has remained low, with a slightly decreasing tendency in recent years – in 2016, it was less than 13 % in technology and engineering and 25.3 % in the natural sciences.
In terms of FTE, women make up mere 11.0 % in technology and engineering, and 23.3 % in the natural sciences.
The highest equality is traditionally observed in medicine where women made up 47.7 % of researchers (53 % of FTEs) in 2016.
Female researchers made up 42 % in both the social sciences and humanities, and 40 % in agricultural research in 2016.
Researchers by Sector
Over 80 % of researchers in the Czech Republic (2016) are employed at universities or enterprises; 41.7 % and 40.4 % respectively. The share of female researchers employed by universities and enterprises is the lowest of all sectors.
In 2016, only one in three university researchers (34.4 %; 31.8 % of FTEs) and one in eight private enterprises researchers (12.6 %; 12.1 % FTEs) were female.
The government employs 17.6 % of researchers and NGOs only 0.3 %. The share of female researchers in these two sectors hovers around 40 %.
The proportions of women in all three main sectors of employment (university, enterprise, government) are among the lowest in the EU.
Academic Employees
In 2016, the overall employment of academics was 17 970 FTEs, of which women made up 35.7 %.
Unlike in research, where prevalence of men over women is stable or gradually growing, the share of female academics seems to stagnate.
Lower academic positions display a much higher gender equality – lecturer (58.3% of women), assistant professor (48.8 %).
The number of women in top academic positions is very low;
• only 15.4 % of full professors (2016);
• 25.3 % of associate professors.
Similarly to research, the highest equity fields for academics are the social sciences (44.2 %), medicine (43.3 %), and the humanities (41.0 %).
The lowest share of female academics was observed in technology and engineering (22.9 %) and the natural sciences (23.8 %).
Gender pay gaps were observed at all levels of the academic career.
In terms of women in top academic positions (full professor – grade A; associate professor – grade B), the Czech Republic ranks among the worst in the EU (international data from 2013).
Decision Makers
Decision making in science is still dominated by men. The share of women in top positions in research institutions, universities and other research and development institutions (Academy of Sciences, Czech Science Foundation, Council of Czech Universities, Czech Rectors Conference, R&D Council, etc.) was mere 15.5 % in 2016.
Decision-making, policy-making and control bodies of these institutions have only 19.3 % of female members.
The share of women in advisory and expert bodies was 18.0 %.