Brussels, 23/01/2003 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, Commissioner Philippe Busquin received a report on the number of women involved in European research. This report confirms that they are poorly represented in the private sector. Barely 50,000 of the 500,000 researchers in European industry are women. In the ten countries that have available data on the gender of researchers, the average number of women is around 15% but this figure is less in Germany (9.6M) and Austria (9%). In Finland 17.8% of researchers are women and 28% in Ireland. The experts' group, led by Helga Rübsamen-Waigman, Vice President of Bayer AG is asking for measures to be taken to improve the representation of women by 2010. The report contains a series of recommendations that look both at companies and political leaders. They aim at: promoting scientific careers amongst young women, modifying recruitment cultures in companies and public research bodies (where leading positions are often more accessible to men); offer better compatibility between professional and family life; develop indicators allowing for national political results to be compared; developing information exchange on good practices.