New SWATI Portal Seeks to Empower Women in Science Fields

Marking the International Day of Women and Girls in Science on February 11th, 2024, the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) witnessed the inauguration of an ambitious new digital initiative named “Science for Women – A Technology & Innovation (SWATI) Portal” by Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India.

Aimed at systematically compiling profiles of Indian women achieving milestones across the spheres of Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine and Mathematics (STEMM), the SWATI portal represents a vital step towards bridging the nation’s substantial gender imbalance in advanced scientific education and career trajectories.

The Underrepresentation Conundrum

Despite females pursuing over 40% of undergraduate degrees in STEMM disciplines currently, their proportion drops drastically further down the professional pathway. Government of India 2022 data reveals only 18.9% representation amongst PhD enrolments within these subjects, while the share of female researchers engaged in national R&D efforts stands at a meager 15%.

Such underparticipation also renders in upper academia and industry with women cornering barely 16% of elite fellowships and 14% of startup founder equity positions while earning 35% less STEMM pay packages over working lifetimes.

Much of this leaking pipeline syndrome that filters out female talent stems from deterrents like perceived lack of merit, cultural attitudes, domestic responsibilities, inadequate networks, interactional discrimination and missing safety nets that fail women’s late career continuity. Tackling this heavily skewed scenario remains imperative for an Atmanirbhar Bharat.

Why Visibility Matters

While multi-dimensional policy reforms must drive change top-down, bottom-up shoecase initiatives play equally strong demonstration effect in normalizing women’s integration. This underscores the SWATI portal’s necessity as India’s first centralized database spotlighting accomplished female and girl STEMM participants.

Its repository filled by over 3000 trailblazing “WiS Data Cards” hopes to tackle implicit biases by evidencing the spectrum of impactful research, innovations and leadership already achieved by Indian women occupying various rungs – from high school pupils to senior institutional heads. By granting much-deserved visibility to female role models, it chips away at countering gender stereotypes on competency.

Making Connections, Inspiring Solutions

However, representation itself remains only the initial impetus. The SWATI system’s true potential lies in enabling connections and conversations leading to interventions that systematically nurture budding talent while ensuring workplace equality and policy reforms for countering drop-offs higher-up.

To that end beyond logging profiles, this dynamic portal incorporates interactive features aimed at fostering collaborations, mentoring relationships and skill-shares amongst registered WiS members. By linking women pursuing advanced scientific queries across geographic and generational divides, this unifying ecosystem seeds innovations through solidarity. Younger visitors also gain exposure to diverse inspirational career trajectories for making informed choices.

Moreover, by tracking demography and performance patterns within an intersectional lens factoring caste, class, disability etc, rich analytics reports generated can reveal inclusion gaps necessary for data-driven decision-making on welfare schemes, capacity building programs and institutional mechanisms essential to nurture the next generation of women scientists.

Building Towards an Equitable Future of Science

While journeys of star pioneers like astronaut Kalpana Chawla or leaders like immunologist Indira Nath make headlines frequently, grassroot relativization of women’s participation in technical domains remains imperative.

Tools such as SWATI elevate thousands of overlooked change-makers equally driving the wheels of India’s innovation economy daily. As the open-access people’s portal continues exponentially enriching its “A to Z” compilation of WiS journeys from cities and villages alike, it promises escalating ripple effects for female empowerment in lab coats.

The icing on the cake? Entry ticket is free and barriers minimal! In Prof Ajay Sood’s words, “SWATI aims to provide JAL, what stands for ‘J’ for Jankari (Information), ‘A’ for awareness and ‘L’ for layak (Getting Support)” - signposting the way ahead for science to become a level playing field regardless of gender.