This year, the theme for that day was "Investment in Women and Girls in Science for Inclusive Green Growth".
"At present, less than 30 per cent of researchers worldwide are women. According to UNESCO data (2014 - 2016), only around 30 per cent of all female students select STEM-related fields in higher education. Globally, female students’ enrolment is particularly low in ICT (3 per cent), natural science, mathematics and statistics (5 per cent) and in engineering, manufacturing and construction (8 per cent)," according to the information available on the United Nations' website.
"Science and gender equality are both vital for the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Over the past 15 years, the global community has made a lot of effort in inspiring and engaging women and girls in science. Yet women and girls continue to be excluded from participating fully in science"
The main Croatian science institute says that it has a total of 880 employees, and of them 427 have PhD degrees, including 246 women (58%). Also, there are a total of 11 heads of departments and four are women (36%), and when it comes to the heads of laboratories, gender equality is balanced (50% to 50%).
Of the three assistant directors of the RBI institute, two are women.
The European Union's statistical office Eurostat provided data for 2017 about gender equality in science and in that year, 59% of researchers and engineers in the EU were men and 41% were women.
In Croatia, according to the Eurostat figures, the share of women in the science and research field is 48%.