Scientific societies best academia on gender balance at the top

Women appear to be better represented in the leadership of scientific societies than in academia – and those societies might themselves provide valuable lessons and avenues to promote female leadership.

That’s the findings of a study of 202 zoology society boards across the world, which also found that these academic societies still have a long way to go to achieve gender equality. The researchers choose zoology as this was their area of expertise, but suggest the findings are broadly applicable to other societies and scientific fields because the most important factors explaining representation of women were independent of discipline.