[ International Day of Women and Girls in Science – 11 February 2025]

Today is International Day of Women and Girls in Science. To mark the occasion, the HR2S network is publishing a document describing the scientific careers of the network’s women researchers, together with an overview of the situation of women researchers in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region.

The information gathered shows how difficult it is for women researchers to break through the glass ceiling they face in higher education. While nearly one woman in two is a senior lecturer in the universities of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, only 28.4% of university professors are women.
These figures are reinforced by the fact that women are less likely to be in charge of laboratories.

So women researchers have less access to positions of responsibility than their male counterparts. While the prevailing view is that this situation will change in the near future, will the profound transformation of the university over the last few years encourage women researchers to continue along this path? Nothing is less certain.

This situation undoubtedly calls for an in-depth study of this population in order to understand and identify ways of restoring the balance between men and women in the field of research. The HR2S network will continue to highlight the work of women researchers, as it has done in the past.