Scientific Production in Brazilian Research Institutes: Do Institutional Context, Background Characteristics and Academic Tasks Contribute to Gender Differences?

Despite the recent changes that occurred in the Brazilian science, this field is still strongly anchored on male figures, as it happened at the beginning of its institutionalization. This paper detaches the contribution of Brazilian Research Institutes for the development of Brazilian science and the importance of contextual, background and academic tasks involvement in scientific production in those institutes, giving special attention to gender differences. Data from government graduate programs evaluation foul's were obtained for the analyses presented here which take into account all professor-researchers - 890 women and 1,470 men - affiliated to 72 graduate programs under the responsibility of 31 Brazilian Research Institutes (BRI), the majority of which supported by the Federal Government. The main findings include: women are a minority in those institutes, are concentrated in the health and biological sciences, show higher scientific production than their male colleagues, especially in journal articles and among those involved in highly evaluated graduate programs. We believe the set of results presented in this paper may contribute to a better understanding of women's participation not only in BRI, which are dedicated to specific scientific areas, but also in Brazilian science in general and so contribute to gender governmental policy.