The project started by building algorithms to identify gender and ethnicity from names. The gender algorithm was completed relatively quickly and the ethnicity algorithm continues to be developed. These algorithms allow the identification of the gender of key people in the innovation and startup ecosystem, including inventors, startup founders, and investors. The key advance in the project came from the innovations that allowed the project to link also the innovations themselves as well as the products of startups to the likely gender of their target audience. Various manual coding and keyword methods were used for this and, in the case of biomedical innovations, online machine learning tools were used.
The main results achieved so far:
* First, there is a clear increasing trend in female participation in innovation and also a contemporaneous increase in innovations targeted at women.
* Second, female inventors tend to invent for women. There is a strong link in the having females on an innovator team and the innovation being targeted at women (see figure 1). This result holds even in narrowly defined areas of biomedicine, suggesting that it is not only a consequence of women sorting or being sorted into specific areas. The results is strongest when the women have more autonomy, in particular when they are the leader of the innovator team rather than a non-leading member and when they work at a university rather than a corporation, suggesting that women are choosing to innovate for women.
* Third, there is evidence that in particular increases in female project leaders in a particular area is correlated with an increase in innovations for women, with a possible causal connection leading from increasing female innovation leaders to more innovations for women. (see figure 2)
* Fourth, female entrepreneurs with female-oriented products or services seem to benefit from the presence of female investors, suggesting that it is important for women to be integrated into the entire innovation chain from science to innovation to entrepreneurship to investing.
The results have been published:
- Koning, Rembrand, Sampsa Samila, and John-Paul Ferguson. 2019. “Female Inventors and Inventions.”
https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=3401889(opens in new window) - Koning, Rembrand, Sampsa Samila, and John-Paul Ferguson. 2020. “Inventor Gender and the Direction of Invention.” AEA Papers and Proceedings 110:250-254.
- Koning, Rembrand, Sampsa Samila, and John-Paul Ferguson. 2020. “Researcher Gender and Gendered Research.” Project Repository Journal 5: 96-97.
The results are also an integral part of teaching content at the host institution and have been presented in corporate settings. Further outreach efforts are planned.
