The sixth edition of the European Commission’s Research and Innovation Days, held in Brussels in September 2025, brought together researchers, business representatives and policymakers to discuss Europe’s R&I agenda. This article focuses on the panel titled “€820 Billion on the Table: Can Europe Afford to Ignore a Gender Gap in STEM Careers”?, promising to address the gender gap in STEM, tackle structural barriers and propose practical solutions. 

The session opened with stark statistics: only 22% of women work in ICT and 9% apply for patents, and forecasts suggest that at the current pace, gender equality in STEM may take over a century to achieve. While the institutional, political and personal contributions of the panelists – Věra Jourová, Michiel Scheffer, and Ann Van der Jeugd – were valuable, the session ultimately fell short in delivering concrete, systemic solutions.
Jourová dismissed the focus on women’s representation in ICT as narrow, calling it “technocratic thinking”: concentrating only on the 19% share of women in ICT ignores the broader potential of women in AI and other fields. She argued that women from psychology, law, sociology, and marketing could bring emotional intelligence and user-centered perspectives to technology. While this is a refreshing attempt to widen the debate, it shifted responsibility onto women themselves to be “courageous” in entering the market, overlooking the structural barriers that continue to block them. Persistent systemic issues such as gendered hiring biases, unequal pay, and cultural stereotypes discouraging women from entering or staying in STEM cannot be solved by individual courage alone.

Scheffer provided a more concrete institutional perspective, emphasizing the European Innovation Council’s initiatives: reaffirming gender equality priorities, providing extra support to women applicants, and prioritizing funding for female-led teams. These measures were among the strongest points of the session, showing how policy can create real incentives. Linking funding criteria to gender balance, Scheffer argued, can deliver tangible results. His example of the EIC’s WomenTechEU program proved that targeted funding and mentorship can turn equality goals into measurable outcomes. He also mentioned cultural pushback, highlighting that young men sometimes react defensively to gender equality measures, as “[…] the fear of women also comes because men don’t see a narrative in which they are […] rewarded […]”. 

Van der Jeugd contributed practical examples from her work, arguing how mentorship, balanced event panels, and public visibility can help women persist in STEM. Her personal story showed how career instability, relocation, and work-life balance disproportionately affect women researchers. She also stressed the importance of role models and integrating gender dimensions into research from early stages. Such examples, while inspiring, failed to translate into best-practice, replicable systemic solutions. Without policy integration, they remain isolated efforts driven by personal commitment and initiative rather than structural reform.  
The panel’s discussion of “magic wand” solutions revealed the clearest structural obstacles that remain the real bottleneck for women in STEM: Van der Jeugd emphasized early role models and gender-aware research; Jourová focused on work-life balance, reminding that young women “disappear from the labor market […] because they have children”; Scheffer highlighted that the critical period “where the gap emerges is between 25 and 35 years of age”.
Although bringing valuable insights, the discussion remained unfocused and failed to propose meaningful strategies. The panel circled around the issues without offering innovative solutions, largely overlooking long-standing structural obstacles in STEM and the need for systemic change to tackle these problems. Jourová’s broader framing and the panel’s reliance on role models gave the discussion a superficial, almost aspirational quality – whilst one would expect a former Commissioner to engage more directly with structural solutions. With her EU experience in rule of law and gender equality, she was well placed to propose concrete tools instead of resorting to motivational rhetoric.
The session had merits: it raised awareness of demographic, structural, and economic issues, presented personal stories of success, and highlighted the potential of mentoring, early role models, and targeted institutional interventions. However, ultimately, even the session’s provocative title was left unresolved. Across the event, discussions often echoed the internal logic of EU policymaking rather than engaging realities beyond Brussels – be it education systems, labor markets, or national divergences. The question of how to close the STEM gender gap remained unanswered, not for lack of ambition but for failure to move from rhetoric to structural action.