Let’s look at some examples. Between 1997 and 2000, ten drugs were withdrawn from the US pharmaceutical market because of their life-threatening side effects – And eight of them posed a greater health risk to women than to men. In technology research, people of smaller stature (in most cases women, but sometimes men too) are classed as ‘atypical drivers’, which has led to a higher mortality rate from car accidents among them. Minorities still face disproportionate challenges – based, for example, on ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity – which can dramatically impact their mental health and wellbeing. Women are responsible for the majority of caring tasks, but this is often not taken into account in economic models and caring activities tend to be undervalued or left out from research altogether. The impacts of climate change vary depending on geographical location, but women and other marginalised groups are often the ones who are the most severely impacted.

Research, development, and innovation that do not take into account the diversity of their users produce erroneous results. We seek to improve the situation by educating both the public and researchers about the gender dimension and intersectionality in research and innovation.