Positive response to communication on "Women and Science"
The EU's Research Council adopted a resolution on the Commission's communication on "Women and Science" during its meeting on 20 May 1999. The resolution closely follows the main lines of the February 1999 communication itself, according to the Women and Science sector in the Commission (DG XII), which is now actively working on implementing the communication. Welcoming the communication, the Council invites the Member States to engage actively in the dialogue proposed by the Commission regarding the involvement of women in research. It also invites the Commission to produce comparable data and European indicators so that the situation of women in research can be assessed more effectively. The Commission suggests in its communication that the aim should be to raise the proportion of women in advisory groups and evaluation panels to at least 40 per cent. So far, however, only around 15 per cent of respondents to the call for expert evaluators under the Fifth Framework Programme are women. Nevertheless, efforts are being made to reach the target of 40 per cent and the sector for Women and Science believes this is achievable, "maybe not in the short term but in the medium term". As mentioned in the communication, the Commission will gather and disseminate statistics from the implementation of FP5 on the number of women participating in research activities and in the various advisory and decision-making bodies. According to the Commission's Women and Science sector, such statistics are already being prepared and should be available on the Web later in 1999. Overall, the sector is happy with the reaction to the communication, and with the Council's resolution, feeling that it demonstrates a willingness from the Member States to work on the issue of women in science. The Women and Science sector is now actively working on implementing the communication, and a number of meetings will take place during the course of 1999. In July, representatives of networks for women scientists will meet in Brussels. This meeting - intended for people working with networks, websites or scientific journals rather than individual scientists - aims to discuss the possibilities of encouraging women to participate in FP5, and adding value to the networks that already exist in Europe. In addition, there will be a meeting of civil servants from the Member States in November 1999. On the basis of the report produced by the Commission's group of experts, set up in November 1998, this meeting aims to launch the dialogue among the Member States.