Yaqueli Portillo, a nursing student from the Matsigenka people of Peru’s Amazon region, faced immense challenges on her path to post-secondary education. Reaching her college in the city of Puerto Maldonado required a three-day river journey, but her struggles began long before. “I didn’t have much [money], and my family didn’t have many resources,” Portillo said. She also lacked adequate schooling to prepare for college and now deeply misses her family and culture.
At the Miraflores shelter, an Indigenous-run refuge for students in Puerto Maldonado, tutor Maria Chinchiquih noted, “Education is very different from what is provided in the communities... Many times, they drop out... feeling bad, thinking that they are not up to this level of studies.”
Portillo is getting support at the shelter and hopes to graduate. If she does, she will join the mere 6% of Indigenous Peruvian women with higher education, even fewer with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Worldwide, women represent only 35% of the world’s researchers, a figure that hasn’t budged in a decade. The UN calls this persistent gender disparity alarming, especially as STEM careers are often referred to as the jobs of the future, driving innovation, social wellbeing, inclusive growth and sustainable development.
So what can be done to ensure we have equitable science systems to create equitable solutions to global challenges?
Research can help. It identifies problems, develops solutions and informs good public policy, especially when led by those closest to the issue.
Studies on the systemic barriers to the participation of women scientists have historically been based on countries in the Global North. That’s why IDRC worked with Maria Amalia Pesantes at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia to dig into the issues facing Indigenous women in Peru. Her project sought to understand the real-life problems facing Indigenous women interested in careers in STEM and to develop practical solutions.
Getting more women into male-dominated fields and industries has also been a priority for researchers in Colombia. Paola Vásquez, and other researchers from the Universidad Autonoma del Occidente, found that when women were part of science teams, their unique views and experiences helped create better solutions for everyone, especially in agriculture and green industries.
Up to 22 million new, green jobs are projected to emerge by 2030, but only 80% of these are in male-dominated fields like STEM. To address this, researchers in Colombia piloted successful training approaches for women in applied STEM. They found that tailored training for women in areas like renewable energy and sustainable coffee production increased women’s participation in these fields, opening up opportunities for locally engaged and driven action.
These projects are some of the fifteen included in the 2025 IDRC report, Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: A Southern-led Research Network to Advance Gender Equality in STEM. Packed with case studies and insights from our network of research partners across Latin America and Africa, the report focuses on identifying and addressing barriers to women's participation and leadership in STEM fields. It particularly examines the factors contributing to high rates of incompletion and dropout among these groups.
The findings in the Breaking Barriers report help to answer UNESCO's Call to Action to Close the Gender Gap in Science, bringing research-driven perspectives from the Global South to this important global movement.