Women have steadily increased their representation in STEM and among leadership ranks across the corporate world in the past few decades, giving the impression that gender equity has been achieved. But experts — and the data — say otherwise.

This report explores the role of trust in whether and how inventors from historically underrepresented groups choose to engage in patenting, who they decide to collaborate with, and how their experiences with the process itself as well as working with others to navigate it can affect their level of trust and engagement.

Increasing participation in invention and patenting by underrepresented groups would quadruple the number of American inventors, increase annual U.S. GDP by almost $1 trillion, and result in exciting new and different inventions.