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Keeping women in science depends on changing the conditions that shape education, research training and employment—not on asking individual women to adapt to unfair systems. Institutions can start by finding where people face barriers, improving access to resources and usable policies, addressing workplace climate and job stability, and measuring whether those changes improve recruitment, retention and advancement.
What does “keeping women in science” mean?
Here, “science” includes STEMM: science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine. Women’s participation differs across fields, education stages and seniority, so a single headline figure cannot describe retention across the whole enterprise. UNESCO’s 2024 report says women and girls form a third or less of students, employees and innovators in STEM. That broad summary is not a researcher-only share, nor does it measure how many women leave science.
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The National Academies’ 2020 report treats underrepresentation as a systemic problem involving structural inequities, bias, discrimination and harassment. Its overview says the goal is not “fixing the women,” but promoting systemic change in STEMM. That framing matters: retention efforts should examine how institutions allocate opportunities and resources, set expectations, respond to misconduct and accommodate different needs—not just how individuals navigate those conditions.
Why is one retention number not enough?
A retention rate only means something when its population and time period are clear. A figure for undergraduate students in one discipline cannot stand in for the experience of research staff, medical trainees or senior faculty. Nor can a broad participation estimate reveal whether people are leaving, moving between fields, or encountering barriers to advancement.
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The National Academies recommends examining recruitment, retention and advancement together. Institutions should define the group being tracked, the career stage, the relevant discipline and the observation period before interpreting a trend. Where data allow, they should also look at differences among women, including women of color and others facing intersecting barriers. An institution-wide average may conceal problems concentrated in a department or career stage.
What should institutions change?
Make resources and opportunities equitable
Review who can access funding, equipment, facilities, training, professional development and decision-making opportunities—and whether allocation criteria are transparent. The National Academies’ finding 4-4 calls for “fair and equitable access to resources for all employees and students,” including equal knowledge of institutional resources and transparency about how they are allocated.
That means checking both formal rules and everyday practice. A resource may be available on paper but difficult to access if people do not know it exists, eligibility is unclear, or decisions are made through informal networks. Publish criteria where possible, explain how decisions are made, and examine participation and allocation patterns across relevant groups.
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Policies should reflect varied personal and family needs and different career stages. But publication alone is not evidence that a policy works: eligible people need to know about it, be able to use it, and have their use treated fairly. Track awareness and use, ask people about obstacles, and revise policies when they do not meet the needs they were intended to address.
Care responsibilities belong in retention planning, not outside it. The UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s 2026 Women in Research Charter identifies caring responsibilities as a factor that can affect retention and progression. This is UK policy context, not a finding that should be generalized to every country or workplace.
Set and enforce standards for respectful conduct
Institutions need clear conduct standards that are widely communicated, along with meaningful sanctions for disrespect, incivility and harassment. The National Academies includes respectful environments and accountability among the practical conditions for retaining and advancing women. A policy that is hard to find, inconsistently applied or disconnected from consequences is not a substitute for a safe and respectful working environment.
Address job quality as well as workplace culture
Retention can be affected by the structure of employment, especially in research. Australia’s Office of the Chief Scientist, in its STEM Career Pathways report released in 2024, identifies insecure work and short-term research funding as barriers to retention in STEM research. It also reports that women are less likely to have permanent full-time work and more likely to hold fixed-term contracts. These are Australian findings; they are a reason to examine local employment patterns, not a universal estimate.
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What role can mentoring and networks play?
Mentoring, networking and support groups can help people build connections and find guidance, but they are supports—not a complete retention strategy. A 2019 UK Government Equalities Office review found that measured effects of mentoring and networking on progression were at best modest. It also noted that studies often failed to account for barriers that kept women from participating.
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Offer these supports alongside changes to institutional processes: fair access to opportunities, usable policies, respectful conduct standards and attention to care and job security. Check who can participate and who benefits. If a program is accessible mainly to people who already have time, flexibility or influential connections, it may not reach those facing the greatest barriers.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How can an institution tell whether its efforts are working?
The National Academies recommends a cycle of diagnosis, targeted action, renewed measurement and institutionalization. A practical version is:
- Define the question. Specify the population, discipline or unit, career stage and time period. Decide whether the concern is recruitment, continued participation, advancement, or more than one of these.
- Build a baseline. Use quantitative data to identify patterns, such as who enters, remains or advances, and qualitative data—such as interviews, focus groups or confidential feedback—to understand how people experience policies, resource allocation and workplace climate.
- Identify the local barrier. Look for where outcomes differ and ask what institutional conditions may contribute. Do not assume a pattern has the same cause in every department or group.
- Choose a targeted change. Match the action to the diagnosed issue. A resource-allocation problem calls for transparent criteria and review; a policy-awareness problem calls for making the policy easier to find and use. Do not assume that a general-purpose program will address a specific structural barrier.
- Measure again. Revisit the same outcomes after implementation and examine whether access, use or outcomes changed for the intended group. Combine counts and rates with participants’ accounts of what improved or remained difficult.
- Adapt and embed what works. If results are weak or uneven, revisit the diagnosis and change the approach. When a practice is effective in its context, give it continuing leadership responsibility, staff time and budget rather than leaving it as a temporary initiative.
Before acting on a measure, state what it counts and how it is calculated. For example, an institution might define a cohort as people who began in a particular role during a specified period, then track how many remain after a fixed interval. That is a local measurement choice, not a universal retention standard. Keep definitions consistent when comparing periods, and pair the numbers with evidence about why people stay, leave or change direction.
Accountability also means examining results across relevant groups rather than relying only on an overall average. The National Academies identifies committed leadership, financial and human resources, contextual understanding, accountability and an intersectional approach as conditions that support institutional change.
What does a useful retention effort look like?
- It starts with a clearly defined local problem rather than a generic claim about women in science.
- It changes a condition the institution controls, such as access, policy, conduct standards or employment practices.
- People who are meant to benefit can find and use the intervention.
- Its outcomes are assessed over time, with both quantitative and qualitative evidence.
- Results are examined by discipline, career stage and relevant intersecting identities.
- Effective practices receive continuing responsibility and resources, and are revised when the evidence shows they are not meeting needs.
No single intervention is established here as the strongest solution for every discipline, career stage or group. The evidence supports diagnosing local conditions and evaluating responses, rather than assuming that one mentoring program, role-model campaign or training session will keep women in science on its own.
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