The Real Barriers for Women in Science

Women are seriously underrepresented on academic science and engineering faculties because of a mix of “unintentional” biases and outdated institutional policies and structures, a National Academies committee said in a report Monday.

The report, the latest in a recent drumbeat of studies and papers documenting perceived problems and advocating aggressive steps to fix them, puts it to colleges, higher education groups, scholar ly societies, federal agencies and others to alter their policies to help improve the climate for women in academic science.