Recent news that Haruko Obokata of Riken¡¯s Center for Developmental Biology found a new way to generate pluripotent cells cast a spotlight on women in the male-dominant field of science.
While figures show they are still a minority, Nagoya University is actively hiring women with hidden talents, and its efforts are bearing fruit.
The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry conducted a survey in 2012 and found that women constitute a mere 14 percent of all researchers in Japan. By comparison, more than 30 percent of the researchers in the United States and United Kingdom are women. In Japan, women¡¯s numbers are particularly low in the physical sciences, engineering and agriculture.
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