Mitsos announces new moves to support women in science
At the Commission conference on gender and research in Brussels on 9 November, Director General of the Research DG, Achilleas Mitsos announced a series of measures designed to promote women in science. Dr Mitsos announced the measures, which involve the creation of an expert group, targets, new attempts to understand underlying issues, a working group and a network. Saying he was not happy with what has been up until now, he called for the integration of gender into research and unfailing commitment so as to make headway. Future avenues for action must broaden debate and dialogue, said Dr Mitsos. The announcements were made to an audience of around 600 people, 91.9 per cent of whom were women. A poll carried out at the conference revealed that 10.5 per cent believed that the situation has improved significantly since 1998, 57.9 per cent believed that the situation has improved in terms of policy, but not in the laboratory, and 31.6 percent believed nothing has improved since 1998. The Commission will set up an expert group to examine the role of women researchers in the private sector, revealed Dr Mitsos. The first report by the group should be available by the end of 2002. The Helsinki group, whilst including representatives from the EU's associated States, has thus far provided statistics on women in science in the EU's Member States. Information on the Central and Eastern European countries as well as the Baltic States has, until now, been neglected. The Commission will therefore set up a working group at the beginning of next year to examine the situation of women researchers in these countries. Conclusions should be available by the end of 2003. Aiming to support the mobility of women's research efforts, Dr Mitsos announced the creation of a network of women scientists, to be up and running before 2003. In addition, plans will be drawn up to encourage regional initiatives to support women in science. Dr Mitsos claimed that moves to integrate gender into EU policy making in the Fifth Framework programme (FP5) had not been sufficient, and that 'more can be done in FP6'. The current target of increasing the number of women project evaluators to 40 per cent will be maintained, and the Commission will encourage project coordinators to include more women in their research teams, said Dr Mitsos. He announced that after FP6 has been set up, a manual will be produced outlining the Commission's commitments on this issue. Finally, claiming that 'those who don't go forwards, go backwards', Dr Mitsos called for the use of indicators, policy analysis, research on methodology and the philosophy of science in order to understand the underlying issues at stake. He claimed that we are now moving into a 'new period of work'. Dr Mitsos finished by saying that 'there is a great deal to be done, but it is very much worth the effort.' The Commission plans to organise the next gender and research conference for 2004.