According to an opinion piece in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, data from a number of studies supports the argument that gender diversity enhances knowledge outcomes.
“Encouraging greater diversity is not only the right thing to do,” say the authors, “it allows scientific organisations to derive an ‘innovation dividend’ that leads to smarter, more creative teams, hence opening the door to new discoveries.”
Here’s the paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/114/8/1740.full
Thanks to Meriem El Karoui (Edinburgh, Biological Sciences) for circulating the link via College E&D Committee.