Qualitative interviews of women in research and development to clarify universal factors which induce “inclusive innovation”

The efficacy of merely setting numerical goals is questionable for promoting diversity. Transparent evaluation criteria and processes need to be established to complement such numerical goals. Various scattered role models for researchers and engineers (gender identity and biological sex: female) can be seen as representative contributors to innovations. This committee aims to index (make visible) universal factors among these role model cases to bridge their existences into innovations by a qualitative research method. We conducted qualitative interviews for four people who are representative contributors to “inclusive innovations”, namely, innovations which benefit our society and help to create a better future. We investigated the following seven main factors (individual and socioenvironmental): General attitudes towards research; networking and multidisciplinarity; appreciation of openness to experience; possessing high motivation; psychological safety; leadership equipped with the ability to discern potentials or being mekiki (connoisseur); and coherency between aim and methods. In our next steps, we will suggest a new assessment tool with the above seven factors in order to make the best use of a diverse field of researchers and engineers to richly yield inclusive innovation.