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696 MERCIER, RANJIT & REARDON

representation on invention disclosure submissions, of all female faculty members in these schools were
with a 51% increase in overall female creators (faculty represented on invention disclosures, as compared
and non-faculty) and a 54% in female faculty cre- to 11% of all male faculty having been listed on an
ators. Similarly, representation of women inventors invention disclosure. In 2016, with the help of the
on patent applications also increased, with 73% more WIT program, the needle has been moved to over
patents listing a female inventor (faculty and non-fac- 4.7% of the female faculty members contributing to
ulty) and 129% more patents with a female faculty invention disclosure submissions. From the sheer
inventor represented. It was noted that the population innovator participation metric, between 2013 and
of individual female contributors at WUSTL grew 2016, an increase of 27% in the number of female
as well, both in the general population (inclusive of faculty engaging with the OTM was observed, and
faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and the number of filings on behalf of female faculty
staff) as well as within just the faculty population. members increased by 129%.
Many studies have focused on the disparity of pat- TTOs can benefit from expanding their reach
ents from women in the academy (12,18,20), which in within the faculty population through repeated
fact is a problem. However, in the university setting, engagement with a faculty member as a serial creator.
a patent filing necessitates an upstream activity con- The findings described herein indicated the number
sisting of an invention disclosure submission, which of female serial creators continues to be a place for
initiates the TTO to make a decision regarding filing improvement despite WIT programming. In this
of a patent application. TTOs do not file patents on study, a six-year history of invention disclosure sub-
every disclosure received, but rather, on average, do missions was aggregated to obtain insight into the
so about 55% of the time (26). Therefore, increasing serial creator population by gender at the WUSTL
the number of invention disclosures representing OTM. Aggregation is necessary, as there is year-to-
women innovators by greater than 50%, including year variability in the number of disclosures a single
women faculty, is salient. Increased disclosures rep- faculty member may submit. Furthermore, a serial
resentative of women innovators means that more creator may submit disclosures year after year rather
women are entering the technology transfer funnel than multiple disclosures in a single year. In fact, over
and gaining exposure to the system and that teams the time assessed, one male creator submitted a high
are diversifying, which has been shown to be an asset of 43 invention disclosures, while the highest number
to commercialization (17). submitted by a female creator was 16. Only 6% of
The data in this study suggests that women still do female faculty members in the School of Medicine
not disclose at the same rate as men, but that women and the School Engineering and Applied Sciences
innovator programs can stimulate progress toward would be considered serial creators that had submit-
increased engagement, including in the faculty ted two or more disclosures, as compared to 12% of
population. Understanding the momentum toward male faculty. Moreover, almost 5% of male faculty
technology transfer in the faculty population is had disclosed five or more invention disclosures from
important because faculty members are the constant 2011 to 2016, whereas less than 1% of female faculty
feeders, and primarily the lead creators, of disclosure members submitted five or more disclosures.
activity for a TTO, as graduate students and postdoc- There is precedence for this discrepancy seen in
toral students will finish their training work and move gender-specific populations with respect to serial
to new locations for further training or faculty roles. creators. Women submit fewer papers and produce
Faculty members also write the bulk of the grants for fewer patents than men, but, in both instances, the
a university, sparking the new ideas for activity that impact has been shown to be the same or higher than
have potential outcomes for technology transfer. In those submitted by men (13-15). The same is likely
2011, years before the inception of WIT, university true for women inventors, meaning that the rate and/
statistics indicated that 31% of WUSTL faculty in or frequency of invention disclosure submissions may
the School of Medicine and the School Engineering not equate with men, but sufficient volume of inven-
and Applied Sciences were females, but only 4.3% tion disclosures from female innovators would create