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By 2050, one-quarter of the global population will live in a country affected by chronic or recurring shortages of fresh water. Evidence shows that women are typically the main users, providers and managers of water in developing countries and are also more usually responsible for household hygiene. Given this, women often possess invaluable knowledge about water sources, their quality and reliability, and how to improve hygiene patterns. The better inclusion of gender aspects in the design and management of water supply and sanitation systems would therefore benefit not just women but the community, as well; it would help increase women’s human capital, free up their time for new income-generating activities or education, and improve community health, thereby increasing the productivity of society as a whole and increasing wealth.

This is just one of a number of examples highlighted in a new report from the Korea Center for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (WISET) and gender and science specialists Portia Ltd. outlining how sex and gender-sensitive scientific knowledge can contribute to socioeconomic and sustainable development worldwide.

Entitled ‘The Role of Gender-based Innovations for the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Toward 2030: Better Science and Technology for All’, the report was launched on 27 January in response to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – a set of 17 universal objectives that all UN member states are expected to use to frame their political agendas over the next 15 years. Here, managing editor Dr Elizabeth Pollitzer, co-convenor of the Gender Summits and director of Portia Ltd., discusses the inspiration behind the report and why gender-based innovations are crucial to the successful implementation of the SDGs.

The World Bank recently financed an urban mobility survey in greater Buenos Aires to explore the gender dimension of commuting – an issue we (and our co-author Catalina Ochoa) have been interested in for quite some time.  There is plenty of evidence that even in relatively sophisticated middle class settings such as in Buenos Aires, ‘traditional’ gender roles survive – women, particularly women with children, have more complex travel patterns than their male counterparts. They travel more, they have more travel needs at off-peak hours than men, and these non-work travel needs are often associated with fixed destinations (e.g. child care). The mobility survey confirmed that the trends observed in Buenos Aires were similar to findings across the world including Europe, US, as well as nations in the global south like Peru and Vietnam.

How can universities create institutional environments that support the success of women scholars in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields? This challenge has faced U.S. institutions of higher education for decades as they seek to increase the representation and involvement of STEM academic women. Solving this problem requires system-wide efforts to identify and remove organizational constraints that lead to gendered biases in institutional policies and processes.

The StratEGIC Toolkit offers research-based advice about strategic interventions useful in this type of organizational change. Our research draws upon the programs and experiences of institutions that have implemented Institutional Transformation (IT) projects under the National Science Foundation's ADVANCE program.

This practical Toolkit distills and shares lessons learned about particular interventions and how they combine into an overall change portfolio. Organizations can strategically choose and combine interventions as they work to support the success of women scholars in STEM fields.

There's been a male tilt to biomedical research for a long time.

The National Institutes of Health is trying to change that and is looking to bring gender balance all the way down to the earliest stages of research. As a condition of NIH funding, researchers will now have to include female and male animals in their biomedical studies.