Women scientists around the world: strategies for gender equality
The Standing Committee for Gender Equality in Science (SCGES) has launched in 2024 “Women scientists around the world: strategies for gender equality”, a new joint project with the International Science Council (ISC). The project consists in a series of articles, based on interviews with women scientists from various disciplines and geographic regions, several of whom have attained leadership roles in scientific organizations. It explores the drivers and barriers to gender representation in scientific organizations, aiming to document from a qualitative point of view the obstacles to gender equality in science, and the strategies developed to reach it.
The first blog introducing the series is signed by Léa Nacache: Who shapes the future of science? Examining the stark gender imbalance in scientific leadership: https://gender-equality-in-science.org/2024/10/14/who-shapes-the-future-of-science-examining-the-stark-gender-imbalance-in-scientific-leadership/
The first article gives voice to Dr. Encieh Erfani, an Iranian physicist specialized in cosmology and ISC Fellow, who resigned from her academic position in Iran in 2022 as a protest in honor of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who died in custody after being detained for allegedly violating Iran’s compulsory hijab law. In the face of gender apartheid: Dr. Erfani’s path (signed by Léa Nacache and Marie-Françoise Roy) https://gender-equality-in-science.org/2024/10/17/in-the-face-of-gender-apartheid-dr-erfanis-path/
The second piece is devoted to former CWM member Marie Françoise Ouedraogo. She was the first woman in Burkina Faso to earn a PhD in mathematics, and founded the Association of Women in Mathematics in Africa (AWMA) in 2013. From pioneer to leader: Paving the way for African women in mathematics (signed by Léa Nacache and Marie-Françoise Roy) https://gender-equality-in-science.org/2024/10/21/from-pioneer-to-leader-paving-the-way-for-african-women-in-mathematics/
The SCGES is an independent committee formed in 2020 by several international scientific organizations, including the IMU. It is a follow-up to the “Gender Gap in Science Project”, ensuring liaison amongst international scientific unions to foster gender equality, and the implementation of the project's recommendations.
https://gender-equality-in-science.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/SCGESreport2022-2023.pdf
A Global Approach to the Gender Gap in Mathematical, Computing, and Natural Sciences
In order to promote gender equality in science, nine international organizations who took part in the project A Global Approach to the Gender Gap in Mathematical, Computing, and Natural Sciences: How to Measure It, How to Reduce It? wish to act together to further promote this goal by continuing and enlarging the work accomplished so far, in particular by supporting women and girls’ equal access to science education, fostering equal opportunity and treatment for females in their careers. For this purpose, they established a Standing Committee for Gender Equality in Science (SCGES) in September 2020.
The International Mathematical Union is part of these founding organizations. Each of the founding partners appointed a representative and a deputy representative. For IMU, these are respectively Marie-Françoise Roy and Carolina Araujo.
SCGES had initially nine founding partners in 2020. The number of partners has grown steadily since then and reached twenty-three on September 4 2023.
"Standing for Gender Equality in Science in times of Covid-19" is a statement issued by SCGES on December 2 2020. See here.
SCGES is issuing annual reports:
2020-2021
2021-2022
2022-2023
SCGES is also organizing a Webinar Series which is a monthly event.