A new study by the European Patent Office (EPO): Fewer than 1 in 7 inventors in Europe are women

A new study released today by the European Patent Office (EPO) finds that 13.2% of inventors in Europe are women. The study, the first of its kind to be published by the EPO, is based on the percentage of women inventors named in all patent applications to the EPO from 1978 until 2019. It highlights that while the women inventor rate in Europe has been rising in recent decades (up from only 2% in the late 1970s to 13.2% in 2019), a strong gender gap remains. The rate of women inventors is also far below the share of women among science and engineering researchers and graduates.· EPO data