Six women have now joined the 20 men in the Italian government’s COVID-19 emergency task force, after a public appeal from leading Italian female scientists (see go.nature.com/2u4gtfj). The petitioners argued that the original imbalance could have been avoided had the committee’s selection paid more attention to merit.
In Italy, the evaluation of research performance is influenced by factors that are unfavourable to women. For example, it fails to take into account time spent away from research to care for children or elderly relatives, which typically means fewer publications. Italian women carry a much heavier share of these family roles than do men; nurseries meet just 25% of potential demand and elderly people account for almost one-quarter of the population.
The welcome addition of women to the coronavirus task force is a tacit acknowledgement that all genders would score comparably on research impact if they could spend the same amount of time in the lab.
