Thesis work – improving gender diversity in innovation

At Volvo Group we believe that we have a collective responsibility to make the world we live in a better place. Our world is changing. A growing global population, urbanization and e-commerce, means that the demand for sustainable transportation solutions and infrastructure will continue to increase. At the same time, climate change is the challenge of our generation. Volvo Group is committed to driving the transition to sustainable, safe, and more productive transport and infrastructure solutions, while making the journey to become a net-zero society.

Description of thesis work
Studies show that diversity improves the quality of innovative output, yet the number of female inventors on patents is very low across both industries and geography. Volvo Group has therefore committed to seek understanding and take action to increase the share of female inventors within the company by signing the Diversity Pledge. To us at Volvo Group, the benefits of overcoming this issue are clear - our female employees will have more personal growth and professional fulfillment, whilst at the same time strengthening our competitive edge in an ever-transforming industry.
Preliminary thesis questions could focus on:

• How does gender diversity among inventors differ between different diversity pledgees/industries?
• What are common root causes for the female inventors being underrepresented within companies?
• What are the key learnings between industries/pledgees to overcome issues with diversity within innovation?
• What are the most relevant insights and best practices from research in this area?

We seek two driven thesis workers to help us in Volvo Group Intellectual Property on this crucial journey to understand and increase diversity in innovation. It’s important that you find the topic of diversity in innovation interesting, have strong social skills and take the initiative to engage with people and other companies/pledgees, as well as analytical skills to handle and draw conclusions from Volvo Group data on inventors.

Volvo Group Intellectual Property (VGIP) – who are we?
We are responsible for managing IP for the entire Volvo Group. As such we help to drive and safeguard the technology transformation with creation and use of IP, such as patents.
Every filed patent application specifies the inventors who created the invention. By compiling and analyzing that data we can understand a lot about the inventor community, including the level of gender diversity amongst inventors.
During your time as a thesis worker you would be part of the VGIP team.

Suitable Background: Engineering, Design, Innovation, Intellectual Property, Social Sciences
Thesis Level: Master
Language: English
Starting Date: 2024
Number of Students: 2

For further information, please contact:
Mike Hatrick, Vice President IP Strategy and Portfolio
michael.hatrick@volvo.com