WIGSAT · Editorial

Guides & Research

Country snapshots, policy briefs, conference recaps, and data analysis on women in STEM — from NSF and UNESCO datasets to Grace Hopper and GASAT.

June 2026

Women in STEM in Canada: Programs at Waterloo, Toronto, and McGill

A guide to women-in-STEM programs, scholarships, and university initiatives in Canada — from Waterloo's cooperative education model and Toronto's research depth to McGill's bilingual STEM environment, plus the Canadian funding landscape for women researchers.

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May 2026

Women in STEM in the UK: Programs at Imperial, Cambridge, and Beyond

A guide to women-in-STEM programs, scholarships, and initiatives at UK universities — from Imperial College London's Women in Science Engineering and Technology initiatives to Cambridge's STEM women's networks, funding opportunities, and the UK's broader policy landscape.

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November 2025

How to Apply for a Women-in-STEM Scholarship: Application Essay Strategy

A practical guide to writing competitive women-in-STEM scholarship applications — how to structure the personal statement, what reviewers look for in Broader Impacts sections, how to write about mentorship and community without sounding formulaic.

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May 2025

Top 10 Women-in-STEM Scholarships Closing Each Spring

The ten most significant scholarships for women in STEM with spring application deadlines — from the SWE scholarships to the Hertz Foundation and Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship — with amounts, eligibility, and strategy notes.

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October 2024

UNESCO's 2024 Women in Science Report: Where the Gaps Grew and Where They Narrowed

An editorial analysis of UNESCO's 2024 'Women in Science' report — examining regional differences in researcher gender balance across Sub-Saharan Africa, South and West Asia, and Latin America, and the fields where women are over- and under-represented globally.

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October 2022

AAUW's 'The STEM Gap': What the 2021 Earnings Data Shows

An editorial analysis of AAUW's 'The STEM Gap' report — the earnings and attainment data from the 2022 edition, drawing on 2021 American Community Survey data. Focuses on the disaggregated story: pay gaps vary enormously by STEM subfield.

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March 2022

IWD 2022: The STEM Gender Gap in 10 Charts

A data-driven synthesis of the most important gender-gap metrics in STEM as of early 2022, drawing on UNESCO's Women in Science factsheet, OECD Education at a Glance 2021, and NSF's 2021 Survey of Earned Doctorates.

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March 2021

The Schlumberger Faculty for the Future: How the Fellowship Changed a Generation

A retrospective analysis of the Schlumberger Foundation Faculty for the Future fellowship programme — established 2004 — which by 2021 had supported over 700 women from developing nations pursuing PhD or postdoctoral research in STEM.

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September 2020

Women in STEM in the UK: What WISE's Annual Data Shows Post-Brexit

UK country snapshot circa 2020 — examining WISE workforce data, the Athena SWAN programme's impact on university culture, and the early Brexit-related uncertainty about EU research funding and mobility for women researchers.

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March 2020

The Pandemic and Women's Research Output: Early Data and What It Predicts

An evidence-based early analysis of what prior research on 'career shock' events predicts about differential impacts on women researchers — drawing on 2008–2009 financial crisis data and the double-burden literature.

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November 2019

McKinsey's Women in the Workplace 2018: What It Leaves Out for Scientists

McKinsey's 2018 'Women in the Workplace' report covered the tech sector in detail, but its methodology skews toward corporate settings. This editorial analysis critiques the data through a research-science lens, examining what the report misses for women in academia and government research institutions.

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March 2019

Women in STEM in Brazil: Engineering Enrollment, CNPq, and Regional Gaps

A country snapshot of Brazil's women-in-STEM landscape circa 2019 — examining CNPq gender data, CAPES postgraduate enrollment, the regional split between Southeastern universities and the North/Northeast, and the specific under-representation in engineering fields.

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September 2018

Grace Hopper Celebration 2018: Scale, Sponsorship, and the Inclusion Debate

The 2018 Grace Hopper Celebration drew 22,000 attendees in Houston. This recap examines the conference's evolution from academic gathering to corporate-sponsored event, and the internal debate about whether scale was diluting the engineering-research focus.

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February 2017

Women in STEM in India: Between Policy Ambition and Campus Reality

A country snapshot of India's women-in-STEM situation circa 2017, examining enrollment data, the IIT gender gap, DST WISE programme, and the regional variation between states.

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October 2016

L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science: Two Decades and 3,000 Scientists

The L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science fellowship programme reached its 18th cycle in 2016. This retrospective examines the programme's five-region fellowship structure, awardee selection, and what research shows about whether fellowship programmes at this scale affect pipeline outcomes.

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May 2016

GASAT 14: Intergenerational Knowledge and the Crisis of Women Leaving Research

A recap of the 14th GASAT conference (2016) and its examination of mid-career attrition — why women with PhD-level STEM credentials were leaving research positions in greater numbers than men at equivalent career stages.

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November 2015

Kenya's Women-in-Tech Moment: iHub, Andela, and What the Numbers Miss

In 2015, Nairobi was establishing itself as a continental tech hub. This analysis examines women's participation in Kenya's tech sector using ITU and government data, covering iHub, the early Andela programme, and whether 'Silicon Savannah' growth was translating into engineering roles for women.

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March 2015

The NCWIT Scorecard 2015: Where Women Stand in Computing

An editorial analysis of the NCWIT 2015 Scorecard on women in computing — what improved, what didn't, and what the Anita Borg Institute's Grace Hopper context adds to the picture.

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September 2014

HeForShe and the Limits of Solidarity Campaigns for Women in STEM

Examining the September 2014 HeForShe launch: what the evidence says about male-ally interventions in academic settings, how they complement structural reform, and why gender equity in STEM research requires more than solidarity signalling.

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September 2013

Women in STEM in South Africa: Progress, Gaps, and the Post-Apartheid Generation

A country snapshot of South Africa's women-in-STEM landscape circa 2013, covering the National Research Foundation's gender initiatives, the Department of Science and Technology pipeline, and the specific challenges facing Black women scientists in the post-apartheid university system.

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March 2011

International Women's Day 2011: What the Pipeline Data Actually Shows

An evidence-based examination of women's progression from STEM undergraduate study to research career — drawing on UNESCO and NSF datasets, and interrogating the 'leaky pipeline' metaphor that had come under academic critique.

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May 2010

GASAT 12: Climate, Sustainability, and the Women-in-Science Agenda

A recap of the 12th GASAT conference (2010), examining the turn toward sustainability science in the women-in-STEM policy agenda and how researchers from developing nations were advocating for equitable access to climate-science funding.

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June 2009

Women in ICTs: The African Access Gap in 2009

A survey of women's access to information and communication technologies across Sub-Saharan Africa in 2009, examining Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria as comparative cases and drawing on ITU and World Bank data.

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March 2008

GASAT 11: Gender and Science Policy at a Crossroads

A recap of the 11th GASAT conference (Mauritius, 2007) examining how the Gender and Science and Technology association's policy focus shifted from participation metrics toward institutional reform, and what that meant for women researchers in developing nations.

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