Is it a Man’s World? Gender Differences in University – Industry Collaboration Activities

The field of science and technology has long been associated with the under-representation of women in leading positions. In recent years, the debate about women representation in academic science has started to include issues about women’s engagement with industry and participation in technology transfer activities. This study investigates if women academics engage less than their male colleagues in collaboration activities with industry, and if they choose different forms of engagement. Analyzing multi-source data for 1200 UK physical and engineering scientists and employing a matching technique we find that women researchers collaborate less than men and they tend to choose less rewarding channels of collaboration. Exploiting additional information on the individuals, we propose possible explanations of this phenomenon and we explore implications for research on gender stratification in commercial science and policies designed to encourage academics to engage with industry.