As arguably the largest STEM field, here we see the greatest volume of applications.

There’s a steady decline in female representation within life sciences, however, from 50% at the entrance level to under 20% at Professorship. Such a drastic decline of female-held positions throughout the Life Sciences career framework fuels our drive to sustain gender equality throughout all milestones of women’s careers.

Whether looking through a telescope, microscope or camera, these scientists work to understand how the natural laws of physics and chemistry shape our world, and beyond.

According to the US National Science Foundation, women comprise only 20% of physics students. Despite continued efforts, a recent study concluded that it may still take over two centuries to see equal gender representation.

Computing arose as mathematicians found innovative ways to automate their calculations.

Gender participation within computer science has been declining for decades. In the 1980’s up to 37% of undergraduate students were women, but this has since fallen to only 18% in the US (as of 2010). Likely, because of tech marketing campaigns geared favourably towards a male audience, we aim to support women in their work and combat this steady decline in representation.

Whether that is building machines, tools, infrastructure or prosthetics, this is a hugely diverse discipline with near endless opportunities.

According to Engineering UK, despite the fact that consistently more women progress into higher education than men, just 16% of engineering and technology undergraduates are female. Second only to computer science, it is clear that engineering, as a discipline, needs to engage with young people in order to support role models and encourage an uptake in studies.

UNESCO and L’Oréal were delighted to announce the introduction of the ‘Sustainable Development’ award in 2020, aiming to contribute to the strengthening of research within the interdisciplinary ‘field’ of Sustainable Development.

As per the UNESCO Science Report: towards 2030, we observe, “women are not represented equally in the key climate-change related sectors of science as skilled workers, professionals or decision-makers… They are very much a minority in… fields that will be vital for the transition to sustainable development, such as energy, engineering, transportation, information technology (IT) and computing.”