According to official data by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the number of women scientists in India, especially in the field of research has significantly increased. This trend can be further reinstated by the fact that earlier this month, Dr N Kalaiselvi became the first woman director general of India's largest research and development organisation.
The report suggests that the number of women participating in extramural R&D projects went up from 13 per cent in 2000-01 to 28 per cent in 2018-19. The data also shows that the number of female principal investigators in R&D went from 232 in 2000-01 to 941 in 2016-17, which is a significant jump.
Analysing the number of women researchers in India, the report found that it was much higher in the social sciences and humanities space, at 26.4 per cent. However, there are several researchers in the field of health sciences (24.5 per cent) and natural sciences and agriculture (22.5 per cent each). Having said that, there are still not many women researchers in the field of technology, with only 14.5 per cent of women scientists opting for it.
“The increase in women’s participation, especially in research, is due to a combination of government programmes and natural progression. Personally, I have never faced hiccups in my career. But I have seen that women tend to drop out when they get married or have children,” Dr Kalaiselvi told in an interview with The Indian Express. She added that in CSIR labs the women's participation increased because they started offering creche facilities in the residential colonies where the women live.
Dr Kalaiselvi expressed that her intention is to further improve the participation of women scientists, starting from within the organisation. Meanwhile, Dr S Chandrasekhar, secretary of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) believes the use of AI in science will improve women's participation in S&T in the next five years. Remote working can increase the number of women scientists working in India.
Dr Akhilesh Gupta, senior adviser at the DST, revealed that they are intending to increase the participation of women scientists in research to 30 per cent by 2030. In fact, he revealed that 11 out of 18, that is 61 per cent of divisions in DST are headed by women.