The National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps program (I-Corps) is an initiative that provides entrepreneurship training to faculty and graduate students, aiming to help scientists extend their focus beyond the laboratory, thereby increasing the economic and societal impact of academic research.
Since the program’s establishment in 2011, only 20 percent of all participants have been women. A new study led by University of Massachusetts Amhersts scholars Ina Ganguli, April Burrage, and Nilanjana Dasgupta has investigated this gender gap in I-Corps participation and identified a method that may help increase women’s interest in the program.
The authors first conducted a survey with scientists who were I-Corps participants and found women scholars had higher intentions of societal entrepreneurship endeavors than commercial ones. The research team then examined a sample of over 1,200 I-Corps project summaries and discovered women scholars were more likely to highlight the social benefits of their entrepreneurship than their male peers.
In their third experiment, the authors sent a random sample of faculty and graduate students at a large public university one of two versions of an email inviting them to participate in the I-Corps program. One version framed the the recruitment email as an opportunity to use science to address societal challenges, while the other framed the program as an opportunity to engage in commercial or business ventures. Women researchers were more likely to open the email that highlighted the program’s social benefits, while men were equally likely to open both versions.
The authors believe these findings present a low-cost opportunity for the I-Corps program and similar initiatives to increase women’s participation in academic entrepreneurship, leading to more diverse innovation activities.