February 11th marked International Day of Women & Girls in Science, an opportunity to promote equality within science for women and girls across the world.

In order to progress some of the key areas in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) sector, harnessing talent is incredibly important. Encouraging true equity and getting more diverse talent into the sector will provide more perspectives and improve performance, alongside creating a strengthened group of communities and role models across the STEM industries – a key theme coming out of our conversations.

For many years, women have been underrepresented in STEM, across education and within the industries. Women are typically given smaller research grants than their male colleagues and, while 33.3% of all researchers are women, only 12% of members of national science academies are women.

This also goes hand in hand with underrepresentation in high-profile journals and promotions. Developing industries and cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence also has a shortfall of female representation, with only 22% of professionals being women.

We believe an important part of our role at NorthEdge is to raise awareness for gender equality and encourage diversity, equity and inclusion across our business and our portfolio companies, many of which fall within the STEM industries. We recognise the link between having a diverse and equitable culture and value creation, supporting faster growth and better productivity.

In recognition of the day, we asked female leaders across our portfolio for their perspectives on the importance of driving more diversity, equity & inclusion in the life sciences sector, as well as sharing their own career experiences.

Read the interviews in full here.