Women and science has 'great momentum', head of unit tells CORDIS News
Nicole Dewandre, head of unit for women and science in the European Commission's Directorate General for Research has told CORDIS News that she is confident of a 'great momentum' in her unit's cause at the moment. With over 500 participants attending the 'research and gender' conference in Brussels on 8 and 9 November, evidence supports this claim. Since women and science first appeared on the Commission agenda in April 1998, the issue has risen steadily in profile. In January 2001, the women and science unit was created at the initiative of the Research DG's Directorate General Achilleas Mitsos. 'Developments had shown that it [women and science] was an important and strategic issue, at the heart of the science and society dilemma. And Commissioner Busquin has given it a prominent place in the European research area [ERA] strategy. The signal was to say that this issue deserves a unit on its own and also to underline our accountability for results achieved through the implementation of our action plan,' explains Ms Dewandre. Women working in science appear to appreciate what is being initiated by the Commission. Requests come in from all over Europe, particularly for publications, but also for Commission representatives to attend events. On account of demand, the ETAN (European technology assessment network) report on 'promoting excellence through mainstreaming gender equality' has gone back into print. Members of the Helsinki group, a group of national civil servants involved in promoting women in scientific research at national level, 'continuously report that membership reinforces their position inside their own Member States or associated countries,' said Ms Dewandre, who added that it is a 'win-win situation for each member'. The Helsinki group are so satisfied with their participation in the task of raising the profile of women in science that they are now themselves calling for the Commission to do still more. At a meeting of the group in May, members called for a joint critical assessment of their policies. 'Obviously this was a very interesting opportunity,' says Ms Dewandre. 'It's more interesting than just displaying how things are happening'. Consequently, the Helsinki Group's first official publication, 'Benchmarking national policies to promote women in science in Europe', will be available by the end of the year. At the Helsinki group's December meeting, the national policy assessments will be discussed. 'We want to propose to the Helsinki group to deepen cooperation. For the moment they've worked in giving us information in the national context so that the Commission could make a synthesis and give back to everybody the knowledge of what's going on in all Member States,' Ms Dewandre told CORDIS News. 'Now that this phase is done, it's time to see how we can deepen cooperation between members,' she added. She regards the ETAN report as responsible for triggering 'an interesting dynamic' within the Helsinki group, and for leading the group to opt voluntarily for a new and enhanced form of cooperation. The Commission's activities on the issue of women and science are about to be extended to include the EU's associated countries. These countries were involved in the Helsinki group from the beginning, but their situation was not covered in the ETAN report. The Commission is however making up for lost time, and is about to launch a study on the specificity of the situation in central and Eastern Europe. Candidate countries will certainly not be under-represented at the forthcoming gender and research conference. Over 580 participants will attend the event, 100 of them as speakers. Some 40 countries will be represented at the event. Ms Dewandre sees the conference also as 'an opportunity to trigger debate at national level'. The idea is that delegations will go home, and continue the debate at national level, and then themselves become or continue to be agents for change within their own country. Ms Dewandre is aware of the challenges ahead, but is also optimistic about women and science in the future. 'The difficult thing is [...] that when you don't pay attention to gender or make things explicit, when you stop bothering people with this, it all of a sudden goes back to invisibility. The spillover effects are very hard to gain,' says Ms Dewandre. 'It's not that you just need to trigger something and it runs. If you forget about it, if you turn your back, the feeling is that it comes back as before. 'On the other hand, I really feel there is a great momentum within the community of women scientists and men caring for gender equality - we don't want to exclude them. On the contrary. this means that people caring for this issue have to be motivated,' she says.