Research & Development through a gender lens – the case of Romania and Iceland

For many years, gender equality has been on the agenda of various stakeholders from different sectors of activity and from different levels of action. However, information regarding the participation of women to research and development remains scarce and insufficient for assessing the progress towards equality related goals in this area. This paper aims to explore the participation of women to the research & development sector in two selected European countries – Romania and Iceland. Thus, the present study is focused on the presence of women in a highly specialized sector that contributes to the creation of a competitive, knowledge-based society. Data on research and development personnel are analyzed from a comparative perspective in order to assess how Romania and Iceland perform in the field of gender equality in research and development sector. The findings of this paper show that women are still underrepresented in specific sectors of performance, as well as in some fields of science. Due to data lacking, analysis on the presence of women in management position in research and development couldn’t be performed. So, better and more comparable statistics on gender equality issues in science is needed for ensuring a more accurate image of women participation.