European Commission
Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD)
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RTD-GENDERINRESEARCH@ec.europa.eu
RTD-PUBLICATIONS@ec.europa.eu
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21/12/2022
21/12/2022
21/12/2022
She Figures provides a range of comparable, pan-European statistics on gender equality in Research and Innovation, and has been released every three years since 2003.
A large portion of the indicators included in She Figures present and explore the following themes:
Each edition of She Figures also aims to provide better understanding of emerging issues by introducing additional indicators.
Further information about She Figures publications, including downloadable reports and other publications can also be found on the webpage of the Publications Office of the European Union.
The Gender Statistics Database includes She Figures indicators since 2015 (reference year 2012).
The following classification systems are relevant for the She Figures indicators included in the Gender Statistics Database:
Patent technical classification:
The classification of patents within PATSTAT is based on the International Patent Classification (IPC) system, which is used in over 100 countries to identify the content of patents and updated on a regular basis. The first level of the IPC hierarchy includes 8 sections:
Comprehensive information on the classification system used for the She Figures indicators is available in the She Figures handbooks for 2015, 2018 and 2021.
The patent indicators included within She Figures encompass all patent data from the European Patent Office (EPO).
For a full overview of all the statistical concepts and definitions related to the She Figures publications users are referred to:
Below we list only the statistical concepts and definitions that are relevant to understand and interpret the She Figures indicators included in the Gender Statistics Database.
Patent applicants and inventors:
Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR):
Compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is defined as the year-over-year constant growth rate over a specified period of time. Starting with the first value in any series and applying this rate for each of the time intervals yields the amount in the final value of the series. Throughout the term CAGR is also referred to as ‘(yearly) growth rate.’
For the indicators on inventorships, the statistical units are inventorships, as recorded in the Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (PATSTAT) of the European Patent Office (EPO).
For indicators on patent applications, the statistical units are patent applications, as recorded in the Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (PATSTAT) of the European Patent Office (EPO).
For the indicators on inventorships, the statistical population is all named inventors on patent applications in each EU27 country, EU associated country, EU candidate country and the UK.
For indicators on patent applications, the statistical population is all patent applications, as recorded in the Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (PATSTAT) of the European Patent Office (EPO).
The EU Member States, in addition to candidate countries (Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey) and Associated Countries (Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Moldova, Norway, Switzerland, Tunisia, Ukraine and the UK).
The time coverage of data in She Figures publications varies by indicator. Detailed description of time coverage for each indicator is available in:
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Indicators on invention and innovation: ratios (women to men)
The reference period varies by indicator. The specific reference period for the data provided is clearly stated in each indicator description.
The EU is committed to advancing gender equality in the area of research and development. Particularly, the promotion of gender equality and gender mainstreaming in research is a clear objective and a legal obligation under the EU framework programme for research and innovation Reg 1291/2013).
More recently, the 2020 ERA Communication renewed the EU’s commitment to gender equality and gender mainstreaming in research through deepening existing priorities and initiatives.
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No direct identification of a person is possible from the indicators in the She Figures.
The She Figures reports are published one year after the data collection. Corresponding datasets containing the indicators from the She Figures included in the Gender Statistics Database are available through the EU Open Data Portal at the following links:
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The European Commission (Directorate-General for Research and Innovation) makes datasets freely available to the public. Datasets are made available no later than one year after completion of data collection.
She Figures datasets and accompanying materials are made available online via the EU Open Data Portal:
She Figures data collections takes place every three years. Publication and corresponding data files are disseminated one year after the data collection.
No regular news releases.
The She Figures publications are not published as an online database. Data files related to She Figures indicators 2015, 2018 and 2021 are available from the European Open Data Portal.
The She Figures publications are not published as an online database. Data files related to She Figures indicators 2015, 2018 and 2021 are available from the European Open Data Portal.
Some She Figures indicators are computed from survey micro-data. The underlying micro-data are not available for public access.
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The She Figures reports 2015 and 2018 contain methodological appendices detailing data sources and methods. Moreover, the 2015 and 2018 editions of the She Figures are accompanied by specific handbooks, where users can find extensive information on the sources and the construction of each indicator.
The She Figures handbooks can be found at the following links:
Information on all aspects of data quality is available in the handbooks accompanying the She Figures 2015 and 2018 publications:
To ensure high quality of the data, a quality framework was devised. As part of this framework three different dimension were considered in selecting indicators: relevance, accuracy and availability. Each indicator was evaluated by grading it for each dimension and by an overall assessment. Details on the data quality framework can be found in the handbooks accompanying the 2015 and 2018 She Figures publications:
Based on the European Statistical System (ESS) quality criteria, the She Figures indicators can be considered of high quality in terms of relevance, timeliness and punctuality. In fact, the She Figures indicators are highly relevant for a wide range of users, from national governments, the EU, and international and national non-governmental organisation. The She Figures indicators use the most recent available data to describe the current situation in the single countries and at the EU level and are published no later than one year after the data collections.
Some weaknesses have been identified in terms of accuracy and comparability over time / across countries for some She Figures indicators. Further details on this issue are provided at points 13. and 15. below.
The users of She Figures data include EU policy makers, national governments, and international organisations. The publications provide an insight into the situation regarding gender equality in Research and Innovation at the pan-European level. It aims to give an overview of the gender equality situation in research and innovation, using a wide range of indicators to examine the impact and effectiveness of the policies implemented in this area.
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The She Figures indicators are complete compared to relevant regulations and guidelines.
Bibliometric indicators and indicators on inventions and innovations are computed from databases that do not explicitly indicate the sex of the author/patent applicant. Different methodologies were used to infer the sex of authors/applicants for the Scopus/Web of Science and PATSTAT databases. Details can be found in the She Figures handbooks 2015, 2018 and 2021. Overall, these procedures ensure a good level of accuracy for the matched names but may fail to provide matches between authors and sexes in some cases.
Sampling errors are reported also for bibliometric and invention indicators. The sampling errors assume that the bibliometric / patent database (respectively) are a random sample of all publication / patent applications in each subfield / IPC category (respectively). Sampling errors were used to compute confidence intervals for the bibliometric / inventions indicators, which are reported in the She Figures publications.
Non-sampling errors for the She Figures indicators included in the Gender Statistics Database may be related to processing errors such as cleaning errors or mis-assignment of gender or the presence of outliers.
The She Figures handbooks 2015, 2018 and 2021 detail all the coherence and validation checks that were carried out to detect potential non-sampling errors and guarantee accuracy of the data.
The She Figures data collections take place every three years. Data refer to the most recent point in time available (this varies by data sources).
Punctuality is 100%, as the She Figures publications are released according to schedule.
Indicators on innovation and inventions (e.g., patent applications) are partially comparable across countries, as the percentage of patent applicants to which a sex could be attributed varies by country. Details on the percentage of matched sex-name pairs can be found in the She Figures handbooks 2015, 2018 and 2021.
There may be bias in favour of some countries, as more applications could be attributed to some countries and less to others. However, since the indicators are ratios of variables referring to the same given country it is expected that such bias do not affect the cross-country comparability of them.
Comparability over time of the She Figures indicators included in the Gender Statistics Database was established based on Appendix 1 of the She Figures 2021 publication, which provides a correspondence table between the She Figures 2018, 2015 and 2021.
For indicators that, despite having the same name, were not comparable between the two data collections (e.g. because of major methodological changes) only the most recent year of data was included in the Gender Statistics Database (i.e. the data reported in the 2021 She Figures).
Among the She Figures indicators that are comparable over time, the Gender Statistics Database includes:
Cross-domain coherence cannot be established for bibliometric and innovation indicators, as the data sources used in the She Figures are the only ones available at the EU level to assess these phenomena.
Each She Figures indicator included in the Gender Statistics Database has full internal coherence, as it is based on the same data source. Data sources differ across indicators.
Data for the She Figures indicators in the Gender Statistics Database was collected by the European Commission, Directorate General Research and Innovation from EC MORE Survey on the Mobility of Researchers, the Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (PATSTAT) of the European Patent Office (EPO) and the Web of ScienceTM and ScopusTM abstract and citation database.
No cost burden has been placed on individual countries or EU Member States for the collection of the She Figures indicators.
Variables are being edited and corrected based on set of logical edits at data entry stage. No revisions are done after the publication for the data.
There is no fixed revision schedule.
The data sources of the She Figures indicators included in the Gender Statistics Database are:
Triennial
Indicators on invention and innovation were computed from the Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (PATSTAT) of the European Patent Office (EPO). Specific procedures, described in the She Figures handbooks 2015, 2018 and 2021, are used to attribute a sex to the name of a patent applicant.
The She Figures handbooks 2015, 2018 and 2021 detail all the coherence and validation checks that were carried out to detect and correct potential non-sampling errors and presence of outliers and guarantee accuracy of the data.
For information on data compilation processes for each She Figures indicators, please consult:
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