Beyond the Paper: Exploring the Relationship Between the Participation of Women and the Social Relevance of Research Topics in Engineering Design

Abstract The increase in participation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields has not been uniform. In mechanical engineering, the proportion of women who participate in the profession at all levels is disproportionately low. One factor identified by education researchers that has the potential to draw higher numbers of women to the discipline is the presence of socially relevant and impactful applications of science concepts. To better understand this relationship, the gender distribution of researchers participating in sub-conferences within the mechanical engineering International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computer and Information in Engineering (IDETC-CIE) was investigated. The social relevance of publications within two sub-conferences with differing levels of women participants, the “Design Theory and Methodology” (DTM) and “Mechanisms and Robotics Conference” (MR), was compared. Our results showed that both sub-conferences had comparable numbers of socially relevant papers, but differed in terms of which categories of social relevance were emphasized and if specific populations were explicitly mentioned in the studies. These results indicate that the relationship between the participation of women in engineering research communities and the focus on socially relevant applications is complex and multifaceted, potentially affected by not just if socially relevant concepts are studied, but also how these concepts are integrated into the shared values and norms of each community.