Physics scientific events in Brazil: Female participation

PLoS One. 2023 Jul 7;18(7):e0287931. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0287931. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

It is known that diversity matters to improve scientific excellence and that scientific events are important occasions to discuss new ideas and create networks, beyond the fact that it helps to put the work of the scientists in evidence. Hence, increasing diversity in scientific events is crucial to improve their scientific quality and help to promote minorities. In Brazil, important physics scientific events are organized by the Brazilian Physical Society (SBF, in Portuguese), and in this work, some aspects related to the participation of women in these physics events are analyzed from 2005 to 2021. The analysis shows that women's participation has increased over the years, reaching in some areas of Physics the same percentage as the one observed in the SBF community (always below 25%). However, female participation as members of organizing committees and as keynote speakers is always lower. Some proposals are listed to change the current picture of inequality.

MeSH terms

  • Brazil
  • Ethnicity
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Physicians*
  • Physics*
  • Societies

Grants and funding

The authors received no specific funding for this work.