Earlier in the year, the reported remarks about 'the problem with girls' by British biologist and Nobel Laureate Professor Tim Hunt' brought the issues facing women scientists into public spotlight. Although there have been questions about the reports of what exactly happened and what was said during Hunt's talk in South Korea, the story has given female researchers the rare opportunity to air the problems of gender bias in science to a much wider audience.



What are the factors holding back women in science? What can be done to improve gender equality in the lab? Claudia Hammond talks to women scientists in India, Nigeria, Bolivia, the US and the UK about their experiences and views.



The programme features: ecologist Monica Moraes at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres in Bolivia; neuroscientist Jennifer Raymond in Stanford, California; psychologist Uta Frith at UCL in London; chemist Paul Walton of the University of York; and physicists Rabia Salihu Sa'id at Bayero University in northern Nigeria and Shobhana Narasimhan of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bangalore.



Professor Narasimhan also organises career development workshops for women physicists in low-income countries at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics.



Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker