REinforcing Women In REsearch

Project Information

REWIRE

Grant agreement ID: 847693

DOI

10.3030/847693

Project closed

EC signature date 29 March 2019

Start date 1 June 2020

End date 31 May 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 3 530 880,00

EU contribution

€ 1 765 440,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITAT WIEN
Austria

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - REWIRE (REinforcing Women In REsearch)

Reporting period: 2022-06-01 to 2025-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The aim of the MSCA COFUND Programme, Reinforcing Women In Research (REWIRE), was to address women’s recognized under-representation in academic careers.
REWIRE’s main purpose was to recruit then support 16 outstanding women postdocs via individual 36-month fellowships, enabling each to undertake cutting-edge research and increasing their networks and international exposure, alongside receiving comprehensive non-scientific and transferable-skills training opportunities to further enhance their future career prospects. Concurrently, REWIRE also influenced development of sustainable training and support structures for postdocs regardless of gender, within and beyond the Host Institution (HI).
In line with COFUND objectives, REWIRE fellows comprised a very international group – from EU (Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Italy, Spain, Poland, Slovenia) and non-EU (UK, USA, Russia, Kazakhstan, South Africa) countries – with diverse research disciplines: from East European history, digital humanities, political science, social and cultural anthropology and musicology to food chemistry, mathematics, physics, physical chemistry and microbiology, hosted in 13 different departments across the HI.
Conclusion: Programmes like REWIRE are effective. All fellows remain working in their chosen fields, 12 already advancing in academia (this figure expected to increase); and REWIRE’s structure and implementation inform ongoing postdoc provision and debates at the HI and beyond.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

REWIRE’s first year focused on attracting, evaluating and recruiting excellent, international fellowship candidates (303 applications from 61 different countries were received).
Following selection and onboarding, REWIRE’s 16 fellows actively enhanced their scientific skills, accessed expert scientific networks, attended conferences and workshops, and published their work. Leadership, mentorship and teaching competencies were consolidated through fellows’ supervision of Masters and PhD students and teaching. For transferable skills, fellows received specific training alongside existing HI courses. REWIRE’s three annual retreats offered further training as well as time for rapport-building between fellows and with the programme management team (PMT). REWIRE fellows also transmitted directly to the HI their existing research knowledge and skills and shared their networks.
Career development was foregrounded throughout REWIRE: each fellow had 6-monthly Career Development meetings with the REWIRE manager, submitted an Annual Review Report, received an online Exit Survey and attended an in-person Exit interview. Fellows’ mentors’ experiences were also surveyed.
Results: participation in REWIRE has enabled all fellows to progress onward within their fields, aligning clearly with REWIRE’s aim to advance the career prospects of women in research: 5 fellows have permanent academic positions; 2 are in tenure-track (TT) positions; 4 have prestigious third-party funding awards, 2 currently poised also to secure formal TT positions; 1 fellow has a 5-year Assistant Professorship with possibility of permanent subsequent employment; 1 fellow won a highly competitive HI fellowship enabling completion and submission of a major grant application; 2 fellows are negotiating senior researcher positions at research institutions in Austria; 1 fellow has another postdoc in her home country.
REWIRE fellows were active in dissemination and exploitation (participation in 126 conferences), publication in high impact journals/series (48 journal articles, 2 books/monographs, 5 book chapters, 1 conference proceeding) and science communication activities (e.g. school visits and European Researchers’ Nights). REWIRE’s website and Twitter/X account have been focal points for promoting and disseminating information about REWIRE throughout its duration.
REWIRE’s PMT has presented at national and international workshops, conferences and networking events, and published a Best Practice Guide on planning and implementing postdoc training programmes (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17396471).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

REWIRE has achieved significant results and impacts during its lifetime and is set to continue impacting postdoc training at the HI and beyond. As intended, participation in REWIRE has resulted in all fellows progressing in their fields, 75% already advancing further within academia. REWIRE has thus concretely, positively and profoundly impacted these excellent women researchers’ careers and chances going forward; it has also made a small but real impact on persistent gender disparities at higher levels of academia. REWIRE alumni have the potential to make further impacts within their fields – proof that programmes such as REWIRE can and do make a difference to scientific advancement, and for under-represented groups. REWIRE also maintains an influential role in the HI’s new Postdoc centre (https://postdocs.univie.ac.at/) the PMT regular contributors there as well as to ongoing debates about postdoc education nationally and internationally.
In sum, REWIRE has been a success: it has enabled career progression for all its fellows, and it continues to impact postdoc training and practices at HI, national and international levels.

REWIRE programme logo