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Dedicated GS10AP website launched

A dedicated GS10AP website has been launched. The GS10AP will be held on 25 - 26 May 2017 in Tokyo. Go to the website to find out more about the themes, the satellite events planned, partners practical information and much more. The Call for Abstracts will be launched on 28 November. We will be bringing you more info on the event soon. The event will be held under the title: Better Science and Innovation through Gender, Diversity and Inclusive Engagement.

Subthemes:

1. Development of Researchers’ Information Resources for Gender Equality
2. Benefits from Women’s Participation for Science, Technology and Innovation
3. Gender Equality from Perspective of Men and Boys
4. Developing Evaluation Methods for Diversity in Research
5. Gender Dimensions in Sport
6. Equal Opportunities for Women & Men in STEM Education

Gender Summit 9 Europe great success

The Gender Summit 9 Europe was held on the 8-9 November 2016 in Brussels. Part of the GS9Eu was held in European Parliament Hemicycle, hosted by the FEMM Committee. The session included contributions from Iratxe Garćia Pérez, Chair, European Parliament Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM), B. Mario Pinto, President, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Canada, Minister Naledi Pandor, Minister of Science and Technology, South Africa and Prof Marja Makarow, Director, Biocentre Finland; Member, Gender in the Nordic Research and Innovation Area Programme Committee, NordForsk (photographed left-to-right). We are very grateful to the FEMM committee for hosting the session, and keeping gender firmly on the agenda during the development of the Horizon 2020 programme. The Gender Summit overarching theme, guiding its evolution, is Quality Research and Innovation through Equality. At the heart of our work through the Gender Summits is evidence => consensus => action => change. The GS9Eu was held under the sub-theme Gender-based research, innovation and development for sustainable economies and societal wellbeing. This was chosen because the GS9Eu coincides with important policy developments in Europe and globally that look towards science knowledge and technological innovation to create a better future for all. Significant here are: the new EU Gender Action Plan and Horizon 2020; the UN Sustainable Development Goals; the African Union’s Africa 2063 and Continental Education Strategy Africa agenda; and the OECD vision for Inclusive Innovation and Creating Our Common Future through Science and Technology. The GS9Eu was a tremendous success, attracting 250 participants from 40 countries to hear from over 65 speakers in 15 sessions.  Read the #GS9Eu hashtag on Twitter for more on the event. The GS mission is not limited to Europe, it has been taken up across the globe: 2017 will see the GS Asia-Pacific held in Tokyo and the GS North America held in Montreal. Plans are underway for further events in Africa and Latin America. We work with selected consortia of key stakeholders in each region to convene the Gender Summits. You can now download the GS9Eu report to the European Parliament and European Commission, the presentations made, and the posters presented.

Heads of research councils adopt new gender mission

Heads of 50 research councils from around the world met in New Delhi, India, May 25-27 for the fifth annual gathering of the Global Research Council, hosted by Research Councils UK (RCUK) and the Indian Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB). The aim was to share best practice and discuss research funding policy issues, and in particular equality and status of women in research. Dr Elizabeth Pollitzer, Gender Summit founder, has written an article for Elsevier Connect outlining the mission statement and commitments that emerged from the meeting. Dr Pollitzer gives an example from agriculture to demonstrate the opportunity to achieve important cross-cutting impacts for society and the environment by looking at the implementation of the SDGs in a gender-sensitive way.

Read the full article.

New Gender Summit report: a response to the OECD “Our Common Future” policy vision

In October 2015, the OECD held Ministerial and stakeholder meetings in Daejon, Republic of Korea, under the Creating Our Common Future Through Science and Technology theme. The discussions focused on advancing innovation systems, and the conditions needed to:

Improve the design and implementation of innovation strategies; Improve impact of public investment in science and innovation; Promote social responsibility of science policies in 21st century; Promote science and innovation for health; Create new technologies for a sustainable future and the green economy; Promote science and innovation for global inclusiveness.

The new Gender Summit report, Gender in science and innovation as component of inclusive socioeconomic growth, shows through evidence and examples that gender issues should be part of these discussions.

This latest GS report shows that gender issues should be part of these discussions and examines how OECD agenda for “Creating Our Common Future through Science and Technology” can benefit from considerations of the gender dimension. The report follows on from the “The Role of Gender-based Innovations for the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Toward 2030: Better Science and Technology for All” GS report published earlier this year, applying a similar analytics framework to the OECD agenda. The report is the latest in a series of analysis reports published the Gender Summit community.

Download the report.

Gender Summit 8 North & Latin America launches

The first Gender Summit held in Latin America has begun in Mexico City today. The Director General of National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACYT), the Summit hosts, Dr Enrique Cabrero Mendoza is included on the opening panel of the Summit. Read the list of over 60 eminent speakers on the GS8 website. P artners collaborating to bring the Summit platform to Mexico City include the Inter-American Development Bank, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), The National Science Foundation of the USA (NSF), Elsevier, the Fonds de recherche du Québec, The Association for Women in Science (AWIS), the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science program, Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) Argentina and the UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs Programme. GS8 is held under the theme Science without borders: Improving impact by interlinking gender, geographic, disciplinary and educational dimensions. The day was preceded by a meeting of representatives of institutions of Science and Technology in Latin America at which 25 representative from 12 Latin America countries gatehred to plan the Gender Summit Latin America in the coming years. You can follow the live transmission of the event via Foro Consultivo Científico y Tecnológico A. C. 

AIMS launches African Women in Science initiative at Next Einstein Forum

On 7th March, linked to the Next Einstein Forum, AIMS (African Institute of Mathematics Sciences) organized an African Women in Science (AWIS) workshop to identify priority actions to improve participation and advancement of African women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and invited Portia to facilitate the event. The workshop, organised by Karen Craggs-Milne,  Director of Gender Equality, Inclusion and Business Development, built on scientific evidence and experience of similar actions in other regions.  Specifically, it engaged important leaders and actors in adapting for African context the advice of science leaders in Europe subsequently reshaped by 600 participants attending the 3rd Gender Summit in Washington DC (led by the National Science Foundation) into the Roadmap for Action for North America. The expected outcome of the AIMS-AWIS workshop will be an outline of the Roadmap for Action for Africa, which will be developed, advanced and promoted through collaborations between AIMS, its partner organisations, as well as relevant stakeholders, in accordance to their needs and capacity to create change. Guiding this process was the AIMS-AWIS Expert Task Force, chaired by Dorothy Nyambi, AIMS Executive Vice-president, and the Advisory Committee of Leaders, led by Beatrice Njenga, Head of African Union’s Education Division. They reported on of the conclusions and recommendations from the Workshop at a plenary session at the Next Einstein Forum. Progress will be reported and promoted through future Gender Summits.

Gender Summit report featured at NRF hosted Gender Policy Dialogue at Global Research Council

Gender Summit founder, Dr Elizabeth Pollitzer, spoke today at an event hosted by South Africa’s National Research Foundation in advance of the Global Research Council meeting in New Delhi to discuss practical ways of applying gender lens to research. Elizabeth’s spoke about the recently published Gender Summit publication “The Role of Gender-based Innovations for the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Toward 2030: Better Science and Technology for All””. She examined how not only is the number of women in STEM an important factor for success in the implementation of the SDGs, but that a fuller consideration of gender dimension in research can improve quality of outcomes and generate valuable cross cutting benefits. For example, although road safety targets have been included in the SDGs, women are not identified as specific target even though women are 50% more likely to suffer injury in car accidents due to vehicle design and gendered patterns of use. More such examples have been identified by 27 international experts in the “The Role of Gender-based Innovations for the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Toward 2030: Better Science and Technology for All”report produced by Portia Ltd (Gender Summit founder) and WISET South Korea following the Gender Summit 6 Asia Pacific. Read more about the NRF event at the Next Einstein Forum’s press release about the event. Read the NRF press release about the event.

WISET holds Gender – Forum: The Role of Gender - based Innovations for the UN Sustainable Development Goals, What are our next Steps in Korea?

The Korea Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (WISET) held a Gender- Forum today dedicated to exploring how to further the important recommendations of the recent GS report ““The Role of Gender-based Innovations for the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Toward 2030: Better Science and Technology for All”. The report was produced following the recommendation at the GS6AP to integrate gender considerations in science and technology across all 17 of the UN SDGs. Its contributors came from organisations such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund, UNESCO, universities and development organisations in 10 countries. The Korean members included Dr Paik Hee Young of KOFWST, Dr Jang Yong Suk of STEPI and Green Technology Center Korea President Changmo Sung. The Gender-Forum was a vital platform to gather expert insight to define the possible challenges that lay ahead and gather concrete recommendations for actions that will help with the successful implementation of the recommendations. Read the full Gender-Forum report.

Gender Summit publishes report “The Role of Gender-based Innovations for the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Toward 2030: Better Science and Technology for All”

Today saw the publication of a new report, produced comprising contributions of 27 experts, co-ordinated under managing editorship of Gender Summit founder, Portia, and GS6 Asia-Pacific lead partner, WISET that co-ordinated the. The report was inspired by the scientific evidence examined during the Gender Summit 6 Asia-Pacific, in Seoul on 26-28 August 2015, showing how research and innovation outcomes are influenced by biological and social differences between females and males, and by the growing scientific consensus to integrate gender as a dimension of quality and impact in research. Our aim in introducing  this report is to  help improve efficacy of the measures used to implement the SDGs,  including their cross cutting impacts, by identifying research that investigates all sources and conditions of inequality in the lives of girls, boys, women, and men .  

Flagship year for the Gender Summit

2015 was a remarkable year of firsts for the Gender Summit. The first African edition was launched in South Africa in April 2015, the first Asia-Pacific edition was launched in South Korea in August 2015, and the European Summit left Brussels for the first time and was hosted in Germany. Each event has been opened by senior political representatives of the host nation: State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Cornelia Quennet-Thielen (pictured) in Berlin; Minister of Science, ICT and Future Planning, Yanghee Choi in Seoul; and Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor in Cape Town. The Summit has engaged over 1000 delegates from over 45 countries in 2015. We are continuing to build on the dialogue and work started by the community in 2015. The Summit expands to Latin America in 2016 with the GS8 North & Latin Amrerica in Mexico City in April and we will return to our place of origin in November 2016 with the GS9 Eu. Portia is the founder and on-going architect of the Gender Summit, bringing together key stakeholders from around the globe in a joint mission to make gender equality, and full understanding of the gender dimension in science, the norm.  Photo: Cornelia Quennet-Thielen, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany speaking at #GS7Eu

Interviews with six GS4EU speakers in International Innovation

Unbreakable Bonds, Issue 156 of International Innovation, features six insightful interviews with speakers from the Gender Summit 4: "Removing the Gender Bias" with Patricia Reilly, Cabinet of Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, Research, Innovation and Science, European Commission; "A Female Perspective" with Daniela Corda PhD, Director, Institute of Protein Biochemistry (IBP), National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Italy; "Balancing the Gender Equation" with Karel Luyben PhD, President, Conference of European Schools for Advanced Engineering Education and Research (CESAER) and Rector Magnificus, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands; "Tapping the Talent Pool" with Paul Boyle PhD, Chief Executive, Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), UK, President, Science Europe; "Engaging and Retaining Bright Minds" with Wanda Ward PhD, Director, Office of Integrative Activities, National Science Foundation (NSF), USA and; "Fair, Balanced and Flexible" with Shewly Choudhury PhD, Deputy Head of Basic Careers, Wellcome Trust, UK. Portia established the Gender Summits in 2011 as part of our genSET project. Just register on the International Innovation website to access all the content.

Gender Summit on SABC news

Dr Pollitzer was interviewed by South African Broadcasting Corporation News about the first Gender Summit Africa, held on the the 27-28 April 2015 in Cape Town, South Africa. The Gender Summit platform was introduced to the continent by a partnership of regional research funders led by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). Partners in South Africa included the Department of Science and Technology, the Department for Women, and the National Research Council, as well as Howard University, USA. The GS5 Africa was received with enthusiastic response from all the participants, who welcomed the idea of applying the gender lens to improve research and development outcomes and the idea that actions must be evidence-based and consensus-led. The event attracted energetic interest from South Africa’s media, with many speakers invited to take part in TV interviews and radio call-in programmes. Watch all the coverage on the GS5 About page.