EU funds centre for women and young scientists in Central Europe
The European Commission is providing almost 700,000 euro for a new resource centre promoting women and young scientists in research and development (R&D) in Central Europe. The Central European Centre for Women and Youth in Science (CEC-WYS) is the first regional centre to promote both gender equality and the position of young scientists in the Central Europe region. The project, which involves seven academic and non-profit organisations from four new EU Member States (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia) as well as Romania, France and Italy, will 'develop recommendations for equal opportunity policies in research and development in the region and provide assistance to women and young people in science,' explains the European Commission. 'Besides creating a user-friendly information-laden website, the Centre will operate a database of women experts from the Central European region with a view to increasing the participation of women scientists in European research and the European Commission's expert database,' adds the Commission. In addition, young women scientists will be given the opportunity to attend training sessions that will address issues such as the quality of research, authorship and publication practises. Since a new requirement in the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) is the need to include the gender dimension in any given research project, a manual will be developed to assist those submitting proposals and winning contracts. Furthermore, a funding scheme will be launched to encourage international cooperation in research. All project results will be monitored and published on the centre's website for the benefit of the scientific community.
Countries
Czechia, France, Hungary, Italy, Slovenia, Slovakia