Abstract

The construction sector plays an important role in economic growth, yet has a poor performance record in research and innovation. At the same time, the construction sector remains male-dominated and women's growing role as decision-makers and buyers is not reflected by their input into construction innovation and creativity. The WOMEN-CORE project (co-funded by the European Commission's Research Directorate General under the Sixth EU Framework Programme) was established against this background to address the under-representation of women working in construction research. Given the nature of both the construction sector and scientific research cultures, examined elsewhere, construction research appears to represent a 'double hurdle' for women seeking a career in this field. This paper presents initial findings from the WOMEN-CORE project, with a focus on exploiting existing sources of data to establish the extent of women's participation in construction research. Specifically, it investigates women's participation in construction education, construction research employment, construction publications and citations, construction patents and EU funded construction research projects. Key datasets in this analysis include: the Community Labour Force survey, the Education database; the EC CORDIS project database, the European Patent Office database and the ISI Web of Knowledge. The paper also has a particular emphasis on comparing the UK with Europe and concludes that women in the UK are, on average, participating less in construction research than women in Europe.