After meeting with the Society's Parliamentary and Policy Officer Rebecca Smith, Emily Thornberry MP has agreed to endorse the Society's work on the issues facing women in science.
Janez Potočnik, the European Commissioner for Science and Research gave a speech entitled 'Women and Science: 10 years of fixing the leaky pipe' at the 'Changing Research Landscapes to make the most of human potential – 10 years of EU activities in 'Women and Science' and beyond' conference on 14 May 2008 in Prague.
European conference: Changing research landscapes to make the most of human potential –10 years of activities in women and science, and BEYOND14-15 May 2009, Prague
The conference will focus on how gender management enters into the modernisation process that is currently being carried out at universities and research institutions in many countries. Modernisation is generally focused on some critical issues such as: autonomy, funding, accountability, partnership with businesses, quality of research, intellectual property rights,open access to research results, contribution to innovation, community engagement, etc. Human resources, however, are often not included as one of the main issues – and gender issues are rarely considered. However, no true modernisation of universities and research institutions can take place if the social relationships governing these remain based on and ruled by stereotypes – i.e. if excellence is biased or if innovative-ness is not promoted through diverse thinking.
Gender-bias is often the source of the more-ingrained stereotypes: tackling it in the management of universities and research institutions could provide the basis for radical change in other fields."
Via European Platform of Women Scientists.
L’Oréal UK and Ireland, the UK National Commission for UNESCO, the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the Irish National Commission for UNESCO, and the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET have partnered together to provide a dedicated UK and Ireland For Women In Science Fellowship Programme for women scientists at postdoctoral level to enable and/or facilitate promising scientific research in the life or physical sciences.
Professor Anne Houdusse will be awarded the Federation of European Biochemical Society (FEBS) and The European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) 2008 Women in Science Award. The award will be presented on July 5 2009 at the 34th FEBS Congress in Prague, Czech Republic where she will present a special plenary lecture. Professor Anne Houdusse receives the award for her outstanding contributions to the field of structural biology and the understanding of the molecular mechanism of action of myosins.
L’Oréal UK and Ireland, the UK National Commission for UNESCO, the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the Irish National Commission for UNESCO, and the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET have partnered together to provide a dedicated UK and Ireland For Women In Science Fellowship Programme for women scientists at postdoctoral level to enable and/or facilitate promising scientific research in the life or physical sciences.
The new Schools minister is advocating a return to single-sex education in an attempt to get more girls interested in science and engineering reports The Independent. Sarah McCarthy-Fry is quoted as saying, "Girls do much better in science in single-sex classes. They sometimes feel intimidated in mixes-sex classes, with the boys hogging the limelight and putting their hands up to answer all the questions."
Athene Donald from Cambridge University has become the second British scientist to be made a laureate of the For Women in Science awards (which are sponsored by L'Oreal-Unesco) in their 11-year history, reports The Observer. Professor Donald is quoted as saying, "It's hugely prestigious and a great honour, but the role model aspect is probably the most important thing. Having very visible, successful women who have not become complete anoraks is really important to keep girls doing science."
In the latest round of Athena SWAN awards, the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at the University of Bristol, the School of Psychology at the University of Nottingham and the School of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Nottingham, all receive silver awards. Bronze awards are given to the University of Bedfordshire, King’s College London, Lancaster University, the University of Leicester, the University of Manchester and the University of Reading.
A forthcoming report produced by the Royal Society of Chemistry, Biochemical Society and the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science shows that the high level of attrition seen in female chemistry PhD students is in large part due to 'isolation in the research group, discomfort in a competitive environment and poor attitudes among supervisors'. The high level of attrition of female students seen after chemistry PhD completion is not seen to the same degree in the biosciences. The full report will be published later in the summer.
A new "Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers" has been launched by Ian Pearson, Science Minister. The document aims to set out the responsibilities of research managers, funders and universities in supporting researchers' careers. However, their are concerns that the document does not fully address the problem of fixed-term contracts. The University and College Union have said 'when nearly 80 per cent of researchers remain on fixed-term contracts and were still "routinely under threat of dismissal" when individual research projects ended, the concordat should go beyond the letter of the law'.
New research from the School of Economics at the University of East Anglia has shown that '25 percent of the gender gap in promotion from senior lecturer to professor cannot be explained'. The research found that female scientists do face glass ceilings, although they happen at different stages in careers in higher education and research institutes. Within research institutes women were found to have more difficulty and face most discrimination moving from postdoctoral scientists to senior scientists, where as in universities the transition from senior lecturer to professor was found to be the most difficult.
Research released at the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (UKRC) at their annual conference concluded that the media do a disservice to women, frequently paying unnecessarily close attention to what they are wearing. Author of the study, Professor Jenny Kitzinger (Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies) is quoted by THES as saying, '"Journalists write as if there is a fundamental oxymoron between being a scientist and being a woman"', she concludes that 'the failure to take them seriously, the trivialisation of their work and the perpetuation of sexist stereotypes could harm their career progress'.
