On the Colombian scientific elite — II

“Hemos llegado” (We have arrived). Those were Diana Trujillo’s words —a Colombian engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory— when the Perseverance rover landed on Mars.

She was the most searched personality in Google-Colombia that day. But she was commenting on the landing from Pasadena, California, not from Cali, Colombia —her birthplace. No prophet is accepted in his hometown. Either way, from now on she will be part of the history of science and interplanetary exploration.

On the other hand, what is happening with the female scientists’ participation among the Colombian scientific elite?

In a previous post, I explored the titles of the research awarded with the Alejandro Ángel Escobar Nacional Award (AAENA) — the Colombian Nobel Prize. Here, I’d like to segment the awardees by sex (1990–2019).

Also, to draw a more comprehensive observation, I looked at the AAENA special mentions. In other words, those who submitted their work to the annual call and merited outstanding reviews, but, in the end, were not awarded.

Here the results:

The names of the awardees or the team’s representatives were sourced from the AAE Foundation website and a book that commemorated the first 50 years of the AAE Foundation. Note: Env. sciences i.e., environmental sciences and sustainable development.

What we see here, is just another landscape of the same geography of sex disparities in the workforce of science.

None of the AAENA or special mentions categories granted to female researchers reached 50%, reflecting both Colombian and worldwide trends.

For female researchers, the highest percentage was the social sciences and humanities category (40%). The lowest was that of the physical and natural sciences (14%).

In contrast, male researchers own the highest percentage in all categories in both AAENA and special mentions, particularly in the physics and natural sciences (85–86%).

Out of the 16,700+ researchers registered in the Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation database, 38% are female researchers. The remaining 62% are male. Furthermore, UNESCO stated that there are less than 30% female researchers worldwide.

Recent systematic evidence argued that such differences do not lay on productivity or impact -both comparable for both sexes. Career lengths and dropout rates seem to be better explanatory factors in explaining such disparities.

In upcoming posts, we will zoom into the Colombian scientific elite’s research titles semantic network by categories, similar to that outlined in the first post.

Contact: jcortesanchez@gmail.com