Why Women's Ideas Are Being Ignored by Science - And What It Costs Us All

What if the greatest ideas shaping our future are being overlooked, simply because of who proposed them? Dr. Michaël Bikard, Associate Professor of Strategy at INSEAD, has spent years researching exactly this question. In a landmark study conducted with his colleague Isabel Fernandez-Mateo of London Business School, Prof. Bikard examined how gender shapes which scientific ideas gain technological traction. Using a powerful "idea twins" design, cases where men and women independently published the same discovery at nearly the same time, the research found that identical ideas received significantly greater impact when attributed to men, measured through patent-to-paper citations. Scaling the analysis to over 60 million publications, the gender gap proved universal across every scientific field and showed no sign of shrinking over time. An online experiment with 400+ PhD and MD holders further confirmed that this bias is not deliberate, it operates unconsciously, affecting both male and female respondents alike. The implications are profound: this is not just a fairness issue, but an innovation efficiency problem, strong ideas from women are being left on the table, slowing technological progress for everyone. This podcast is brought to you by Global Management Consultancy.