MRS Communications (2021) 11:656–661
© The Author(s), 2021
https://doi.org/10.1557/s43579-021-00093-1
Research Letter
Why gender is relevant to materials science and engineering
Elizabeth Pollitzer
, Portia, London, UK
Address all correspondence to Elizabeth Pollitzer at ep@portiaweb.org.uk
(Received 4 June 2021; accepted 3 September 2021; published online: 16 September 2021)
Abstract
For historical reasons science today has substantially more evidence for males and men than for females and women, which means that quality of
research and innovation outcomes may often be worse for women than for men. I explore how the gender dimension—a term used to mean effects
of biological (sex) and/or socio-cultural (gender) characteristics—fits into new materials research and engineering and especially in nano-materials
applications. Horizon Europe expects that grant proposals should include explanation if gender dimension is relevant to the project’s objectives. This
paper shows that often the answer should be yes it is.
Introduction
In 2010, a panel of 14 science leaders from across Europe
met over a period of three months to examine scientific studies showing if, when, and how (biological) sex and/or (sociocultural) gender characteristics of the studied population
are included in study design, and what such research offers
to women and men in terms of evidence and outcomes. The
Panel identified widespread historical gender bias and gaps
in knowledge and observed specifically that much more data
have been accumulated for males and men than for females
and women.[1] The cause of this imbalance was the tendency of
researchers to assume that ‘science is gender neutral’ (namely,
that male–female distinctions among researchers or research
subjects are insignificant) and to exclude females as research
subject because they were perceived as harder to study for reasons of hormonal influences on their biology and behaviour.
Consequently, ‘male’ as the norm came to dominate science
knowledge-making, explicitly by excluding females as research
subjects, and implicitly by not analysing and not reporting
results disaggregated by sex. For instance, at the time of the
science leaders’ assessment, 79% of studies in pain research
relied on male (rat) model;[2] 75% of cell studies did not distinguish, or report on the sex of the cells studied;[3] and car safety
was tested on male crash test dummies, only.[4]
The favouring of males as research subject and the implicit
use of the ‘male’ as the norm was very likely compounded
by the underrepresentation of women in core STEM fields,
and especially in the decision-making spheres associated with
prioritisation of research, allocation of funding, and in assessments of research excellence.[5] The repercussions of gender
bias in science knowledge for women can be easily demonstrated. For instance, even though the risks of cancer from
exposure to ionizing radiation are much greater in females than
in males (three time higher in girls than in boys), estimations of
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radiation doses are still based on Reference Man (20–30 years
old, Caucasian male, weighing 70 kg and 170 cm tall) and are
missing data for children.[6] Likewise, eight out of ten prescription drugs withdrawn from the market in the USA between
1999 and 2001 were more dangerous to women than to men,[7]
whilst the analysis of 20 years of car crash accidents data in
the USA showed that women drivers had 47% higher risk of
serious injury than men had.[8]
The realisation that gender equality and research quality are
interconnected, and together influence results and outcomes
has mobilised new interest in gender issues among policy
makers and science leaders, especially in Europe, but also in
South Korea, Japan, Canada and USA. In Horizon Europe,
for instance, the European Commission expects all proposals
to include Gender Equality Plans and to consider if and how
gender dimension, a term that covers biological and/or sociocultural factors, fits into the content and impact of the proposed
work, and how it will be addressed if it is relevant.[9] In 2020,
the German Research Foundation (DFG) joined this trend by
announcing that assessment of the gender dimension will be
part of proposal evaluation process.[10] Those new to the term
“gender dimension” and its relevance to research quality will
benefit from consulting the explanatory materials and scientific
references assembled by the EU co-funded Gendered Innovations project accessible through a website hosted at Stanford
University.[11]
Sex/gender differences start at genetic, molecular and cellular levels[12] and continue their influences through behaviour
and socialisation in socio-economic and natural ecosystem.
Therefore, understanding when, why and how these differences might influence research results and innovation outcomes
becomes directly relevant to materials research and engineering
motivated by applications involving humans (e.g., wearables
to monitor biomarkers) or intended for deployment in living
Research Letter
ecosystems (e.g., in agriculture). Many abstracts listed in the
MRS 2021 Spring Meeting Abstract Book reveal interest in
biological applications. The summaries do not offer details of
the targeted ‘bio’ applications, and often tend to use terms such
as “human”, “medical”, or “health”, but the fact that the prefix
‘bio’ appears in 360 pages suggests that it is timely to raise
awareness why such studies should consider the relevance of
gender dimension, especially as extensive evidence is already
available to show that physiology of women is different in
many respects from the physiology of men, and that human
cells exhibit wildly different concentrations of many metabolites across the sexes. These dimorphisms are demonstrated
across all tissues resulting in different molecular metabolic
and immune response pathways that are controlled not just
by hormones but also by gene expression and environmental
exposure.[13]
Materials and methods
Gender dimension in study design:
a materials science perspective
yes
no
consideration of sex/gender in materials uses
When considering the if’s and the how’s of the gender dimension in materials research it may be helpful to envisage four
scenarios: (1) pure basic research with no direct link to people
or living beings in the content, e.g., as in studies of physical
transformations and chemical reactions of 2D materials with
properties useful for electronics products); (2) pure applied
research with an indirect application-related link to people/
living beings but which is not directly part of the study, e.g.,
potential use of advanced graphene materials for detecting and
removing pesticides; (3) use-inspired research with a direct
link to people or living beings whereby analysis of the effects
of sex/gender is part of the study, e.g., tissue engineering to
examine sex differences and hormone-based effects on tissue
homeostasis, repair, and regeneration; and (4) responsible
research and innovation (RRI) with a direct impact on eco/
socio/economic systems, e.g., toxicological mechanisms and
safety hazards of novel nano-materials marketed for use in
agriculture/food; paint and coatings; pharmaceuticals; or textiles. The first three of these scenarios have been identified by
DFG.[14] The four scenarios are captured in an adaptation of the
Pasteur Quadrant framework, shown in Fig. 1.
Only studies firmly located in the pure basic research
quadrant can be assumed to be free from the effects of gender
dimension. Any spill-overs to application potential and opportunities will, however, benefit from applying a gender lens to
make sure that there is no bias in the assumptions, evidence, or
interpretation and communication of results.
Reflections on gender aspects
of the studies listed in the MRS 2021
Spring Meeting Abstract Book
The 927 pages of the Abstract Book provide interesting insights
into the current trends in materials research and engineering. A
search of the text using terms linked to sex/gender, see Table I,
shows that terms with the prefix “bio” (e.g., biology, biodegradable, bio-probes, bio-based, biosensors) appear in 360
pages, which suggests that gender dimension may be relevant
to a high proportion of material research. At the same time, the
prefix “nano” (e.g., as used in nanotechnology, nano-safety,
nanomaterials, nanomedicine) appears in 734 pages suggesting that considerable proportion of nano-application studies
with biological connections would benefit from considering the
influence of sex/gender differences on results and outcomes.
There are several reasons why focus on safety issues is
important. Firstly, the term “hazard” appears in only 19 of the
927 pages of the Abstract Book. Secondly, experts in nanomaterials and nano-products linked to biological effects have
Use-inspired research
A direct investigation of the
interactions between technical
solutions and people (or the living
environment), or the use of technical
solutions by people (e.g. testing in vivo
materials designed for use as wearable)
Responsible research & innovation
Assessment of public and environmental
exposure to new technologies and
manufactured products
(e.g. toxicity of waste from manufactured
nano materials in consumer, industrial and
agricultural products)
Pure basic research
No direct or envisaged link to people
(or animals) in the object or
methodology of research
(e.g. defining basic physico-chemical
properties of a 2D material)
Pure applied research
A potential application to people, or living
environment, is foreseen but is not
directly addressed in the approach or
methodology
(e.g. creating functional, skin-like properties)
no
yes
consideration of sex/gender in assessing materials safety
Figure 1. ‘Pasteur Quadrant’ for placing gender dimension in materials R&I studies (parts adapted from DFG definitions [15]).
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Table I. Results of a search of the abstracts in the MRS 2021 Spring Meeting Abstract Books using sex/gender-related terms.
Number of pages the
search term appears
734
360
178
156
151
122
114
102
89
81
74
73
72
66
61
50
43
36
36
23
19
14
13
Search term (contextual terms in the abstracts)
‘Nano’ (as in nanoparticles, nanoprobe, nanomaterials, nanoelectronics, nanotechnology, nanomedicine, nanoscale)
‘Bio’ (as in biology, bio-probes, biodegradable, bioplastic, bio-sourced)
Environmental (as in sustainability, assessment, impact, claims, responsibility)
Medical (as in bio-, imaging, devices, diagnostics, applications, testing, care)
Human (as in being, life, toxicity, health, intervention, understanding)
Sustainable (as in practices, future, chemistry, manufacturing, development, design, systems, behaviours, energy,
engineering, technologies, actions, materials, electronics, growth, value chains, solutions, production, lab techniques,
world, thinking)
Toxic (as in toxicology, substances, eco-toxicity, phytotoxic, nature, non-toxic)
Health (as in strategies, concerns, care, sector, risks, monitoring, data, outcomes)
Wearable (as in devices, electronics, biometric monitoring, clothing, dosimeters)
Drug (as in solubilization, delivery, resistance, concentration, screening, addiction)
Safety (as in risks, requirements, issues, concerns, bio, applications)
‘Skin’ (as in skin-inspired, skin corrosion, electronic skin, human skin, skin cancer, skin surface)
Community (as in user, expert, student, effort, wide, -led)
Disease (as in diagnosis, cardiovascular, Alzheimer’s, brain, tissue, skin, pulmonary)
‘Physiol’ (as in physiological signals, electrophysiological activity, physiological environment, physiological recording,
physiological function)
Society (as in of professional, and in general)
Cancer (as in research, breast, cells, skin, brain, biomarkers, detection, imaging)
Patient (as in affected, sepsis, treatment, signal in, population)
‘Immun’ (as in immunosorbent, immunofluorescence, immunity, immune system function, immune response, immunogenic)
Risk (as in long-term, safety, of failure, of low loss phenomena, nano-particle release, human health)
Hazard (as in hazardous chemical use, hazard identification systems, hazardous gases, hazardous substances, hazardous
procedures)
‘Cardio’ (as in electrocardiography, cardiovascular health, cardiovascular implant, cardiolipin, cardiomyocyte)
Physiology (as in electro-, mechano-, patho-, biomedical, detection of)
identified development of standards for measuring toxicity as
a critical need.[16] Thirdly, although some researchers have recognised the need for better safety assessment methods for use
in humans and environment, the need to analyse if and how
sex/gender differences might be influencing outcomes has been
overlooked.[17] As a rough indication of possible ‘gender blindness’ in assessments of nano-safety is provided by searching
Google Scholar with the terms”nanotechnology”, “nano-safety”
and “nano-safety gender”, which produce 47,100, 1550, and 75
results, respectively, for each.
Results
The special case of nano‑biosafety
and nanomedicine
It is important that the emerging fields of nano-biosafety and
nanomedicine do not repeat the history of gender biases and
omissions in science knowledge-making. From the already
widely available evidence,[18] it is clear that all the commonly
studied biological effects in health-related nano-safety and
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nanomedicine areas (e.g., reactive oxygen species, skin,
immune responses, reproductive and developmental processes, genetic changes, carcinogenesis, and cardiovascular effects) are subject to significant sex-gender difference
effects. It is also clear that sex/gender sensitive approaches in
research and engineering apply also to non-human organisms,
e.g., marine species,[19] and plants.[20]
Exemplifying sex/gender aspects
in materials research and innovation
An influential source of advice on conducting gender sensitive research involving human subjects can be found in
the SAGER Guidelines devised for preclinical and clinical
research which would, therefore, also apply to nano-biosafety
and nanomedicine research.[21] For instance, the guidelines
recommend that “Authors should report how sex and gender
were taken into account in the design of the study, ensure
adequate representation of males and females and justify reasons for the exclusion of males or females. Methodological
choices about sex and gender in relation to study population
Research Letter
and analytical approach should be reported and justified in
the same way as other methodological choices.”
Below are a few specific examples of research used to show
why adopting methods of sex/gender analysis is relevant to
materials research and engineering.
X‑ray detectors
The Demchyshyn et al.[28] research involves development of
ultra-flexible, low-cost, and highly sensitive high energy radiation detectors, which they propose could be of great interest to
the fields of medical diagnostics, dosimetry, industrial inspection, security, and because of low weight and high conformability X-ray wearable dosimeters would be appealing to astronauts, nuclear power plants, and laboratory workers, as well as
for imagers used in structural inspection and cultural heritage
preservation.
Applying gender lens would help reveal a number of efficacy-related issues, such as: (1) important sex/gender differences in the damaging effects of ionizing radiation in female
and male tissues; (2) current dosimetry standards are based on
inadequate data that are missing evidence for children; (3) death
rates among girls following exposure to ionizing radiation is
three times higher than in boys; and (4) lack of knowledge
about the cumulative effects of repeated low dose exposures
to ionizing radiation e.g., from flying at high altitudes, visits
to the dentist with X-ray checks; and uses in medical diagnosis.[22] Gender analysis would help also identify opportunities
for new markets for such wearables. It would be wonderful for
frequent flyers and those experiencing repeated medical uses of
X-rays to be able to monitor the total exposure to X-rays over
lifetime. Moving in these directions would shift the engineering
focus into the use-inspired application quadrant and also to the
responsible research and innovation quadrant, thus improving
quality of outcomes.
Lab‑on‑skin
Yiran and Wei[29] are developing flexible electronics platform
for wearable and flexible sensors for continuous and non-invasive molecular analysis in sweat, tears, saliva, interstitial fluid,
blood, wound exudate as well as exhaled breath.
Applying a gender lens would reveal evidence of important
sex differences in the basic skin physiologies of women and
men, and the well documented sex differences in the diseases
mentioned in the abstract (i.e., those linked to metabolic disorders), which are organ- and parameter-specific. For instance,
the metabolic profiles of women and men differ in the levels of concentration that many metabolites are produced.[23]
This means that the value of “abnormal” must be calibrated
separately for women and for men, and that monitoring must
be responsive to not just sex differences but also age, since
the functioning of the metabolic system changes over lifespan. These considerations would move the investigations into
the use-inspired research quadrant and potentially to the RRI
quadrant if impact on public health system is also considered,
thus increasing the relevance and quality of the outcomes.
mHealth biosensors
Wei[30] is developing telemedicine platform for wearable sensors that have the potential to provide rapid, non-invasive, and
in-home health monitoring by real-time analysis of biomarkers in human sweat and saliva communicated over Internet.
The problem to overcome is that most current biosensors suffer
from low sensing accuracy for low-level analyte detection in
biofluids and are difficult to fabricate on a large scale. Such
wireless platforms could be useful for the rapid COVID-19
test that could provide information on infection status, severity,
and immunity.
Applying a gender lens to the development of mHealth biosensor platforms would ensure that women and men are equally
included in the tests (use-inspired research quadrant), and in
the context of the responsible research and innovation quadrant
recognise that because women make up the majority of health
workers they should be involved in the innovation process, and,
also, that engineering low-cost telemedicine devices could help
contribute to the achievement of SDG3 (health and wellbeing)
of the UN Sustainable Goals Agenda 2030.
Mechano‑sensors for physiological signal
detection
Kang et al.[31] explore the observation that in nature, spiders
sense extremely small variations in mechanical stress using
crack-shaped slit organs near their leg joints. Sensors mimicking these mechanisms offer promising application potential in
the aspects of sensitivity, stretchability, durability, visualizing,
and multi-functionality directed at physiological stimuli such
as strain, pressure, and torsion. These researchers envisage that
such materials offer advantages to the biomedical applications
with complex strain and pressure effects and behaviours as in
jaw rehabilitation devices for the neck and head cancer patients.
If such sensors are intended for application on human skins,
applying gender lens would help take into account the evidence
that men’s and women’s skins differ in hormone metabolism,
hair growth, sweat rate, sebum production, surface pH, fat
accumulation, serum leptins, etc.[24]. These differences may
influence efficacy of the sensors for women and men by not
taking into consideration sex differences in skin’s resistance to
physical and chemical interactions, potentially related to more
frequent reporting of skin sensitivity by women compared to
men. Attention to gender dimension would make the investigation part of the use-inspired research quadrant and therefore
improve quality of outcomes.
Life‑like robot behaviour
Mazzolai and Laschi[32] aim to develop life-like robot behaviour by drawing on the lessons learnt from living beings that
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the physical body has an important role in shaping intelligence.
Behaviour is not only controlled by the computation happening
in the nervous system but emerges from the interaction of the
body with the environment. It then depends on the physical
properties of the body itself, on its morphology, on the environment it is operating in.
Applying gender lens would ask if memories stored and
mediated through the interactions between the body and the
environment are different for women and men and if so, how
these differences can be encoded and used for instance in biosensors developed to help stroke victims (more frequent and
more severe among women than men) to maintain balance
when standing. Another much needed application could be
to improve design of crash test dummies to better represent
to morphological and biomechanical properties of male and
female body and as a result to improve safety of cars for all.
Moving in this direction would expand the scope of the study
to use-inspired and RRI quadrants.
Reflection on gender equality
in participation
The topic of gender equality is distinct from the topic of gender
dimension in that it is about unequal participation of women
and men as researchers, decision makers and science leaders.
Historically, men have been in a majority at all levels in most
STEM fields, with the exception of life sciences, where women
have been equally represented up to PhD level. Achieving gender balance in participation is not just a matter of social justice.
Research has shown that the benefit of more equal participation
is improved collective intelligence,[25] cognitive diversity in
problem solving,[26] and more realistic understanding of context,[27] all of which help make research and innovation both
relevant and responsible to society. Gender equality is today
often connected to diversity (recognition of ethnicity, age,
educational status, etc.), and inclusion (recognition of personal
identity) issues, which further strengthen opportunities to make
science responsible and relevant to societal needs.
There is no scope in this article to explore gender equality
issues in materials research and engineering, however, it would
be of interest to consider in the future if there are differences
in women’s participation across the four Pasteur Quadrants.
In addition, given the multidisciplinary aspects of materials
research and innovation and the strong interest in bio-related
applications, it would be of interest to explore ways to attract
to careers in materials science and engineering the talented
women graduating in life science in large numbers.
Discussion
The examples above provide but a snapshot of the current
trends in materials research and engineering. Nevertheless,
they offer some important insights into how gender dimension
can fit into the research itself and drive technological innovation in materials science. The bio-related applications create an
important target for advancing methods of sex/gender analysis
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into materials research and engineering. It is both timely and
opportune to raise awareness of potential gender biases and
related safety issues linked directly to sex/gender difference
effects, especially since scientific evidence supporting such
strategy is already available. The timing is important because
in Horizon Europe, the European Commission has adopted
a policy requiring that proposals include analysis of gender
dimension. Similar policy has been adopted in 2020 by the German Research Foundation, and earlier by other funders. Given
the high interest in and the rapid growth of nano-biosafety and
nanomedicine it would make good sense to also consider if new
career pathways could be created enabling women graduating
in life and medical sciences, where they are in a majority, to
consider transferring their careers into materials research and
engineering areas, especially related to health.
As a publisher and curator of knowledge, the Materials
Research Society have their own opportunity to prevent gender bias in how studies are reported and communicated by for
instance adopting an appropriate editorial policy in their journals, which many journals have already done. Such a policy
may be based on the criteria used by DFG. As a publisher
MRS can also promote achieving gender balance among editors and inviting studies with a sex/gender perspective in future
conferences.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Dr Yvonne Kavanagh from the Institute of
Technology Carlow, Ireland for inviting me to contribute to
the MRS 2021 Spring Meeting programme, which led to the
writing of this paper.
Data availability
There is no associated data for this paper.
Declarations
Conflict of interest
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that
there is no conflict of interest.
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