Mapping the Regions, Organizations, and Individuals That Drive Inclusion in the Innovation Economy

Innovation is essential for economic growth, prosperity, and social progress. However, there is strong evidence of persistent inequality and exclusion of women in the US innovation economy. We develop a framework to map the inventor (patentee) gender gap and identify contexts and catalysts for inclusion. Our approach has three main goals. First, to build inventor inclusivity metrics that capture the presence of women in the flow of new inventors, allowing comparisons across regions, organizations, and individuals. Second, to identify the overall gap between the rate of female new science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduates and the rate of female new inventors, emphasizing that the inventor gender gap is more than a supply problem. Third, to understand the variation in inventor inclusivity across top patenting regions, organizations, and individuals, providing a window into policy and regional and organizational catalysts for change.