The Role of Gender-based Innovations for the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Toward 2030: Better Science and Technology for All

This report was inspired by the scientific evidence examined during the Gender Summit 6 Asia-Pacific, in Seoul on 26-28 August 2015, showing how research and innovation outcomes are influenced by biological and social differences between females and males, and by the growing scientific consensus to integrate gender as a dimension of quality and impact in research.

With the United Nations set to approve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) a month later, Gender Summit participants’ attention focused also on the role of sex-gender sensitive research in the implementation of the SDG targets. The 17 SDGs promise to be more gender-aware than the Millennium Development Goals, however, although one goal, SDG5, and its nine targets are dedicated to achieving greater gender equality and empowerment of women, among all the targets, less than 10% recognise the special needs of women and girls. This is in sharp contrasts to the scientific examination of the SDGs conducted by the International Council for Science, which identified 78 scientific topics involving “gender” and/or “women” as the main and a separate concern.

Source: WISET – Center for Women in Science Engineering and Technology & PORTIA – Gender and Science