According to the latest edition of the "She Figures" survey, published every three years, Slovenia is also among the five countries where the share of women researchers in the area of social sciences decreased between 2002 and 2006.
Slovenia is also third when it comes to the decline in the share of women researchers in medicine between 2002 and 2006. With a 7 percentage point drop, it trails only Ireland (-17 percentage points) and Lithuania (-16 percentage points).
Along with Estonia, Latvia, Cyprus and Croatia, Slovenia is among the bottom five in terms of the share of women researchers in engineering and technology. Slovenia's 5% compares to Turkey's 34%.
According to the survey, which covers the EU and Croatia, Iceland, Israel, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey, women presented only 30% of European researchers and only 18% of full professors in 2006.
Although the number of women researchers increased faster than that of men researchers, by 6.3% in the 2002-2006 period, and despite an increase in the number of women PhDs in the same period, the underrepresentation of women in scientific disciplines and careers remains a serious challenge in Europe, the Commission said.
