ABSTRACT
The commercialisation of academic science is acknowledged as economically desirable for institutions, individual researchers and the public (de Melo-Martin, 2013). In this chapter, the relative propensity for women in academic science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines to commercialise their research by, for example, becoming entrepreneurs and patenting is explored through a review of the available academic literature and published reports. The overall evidence suggests that women – as in knowledge-based sectors generally (Arenius and Minniti, 2005; Micozzi et al., 2014) – comprise very few academic entrepreneurs 1 and commercialise their research less frequently than their male counterparts.
