Spain
February 15, 2021
Sketch of a CRAG female researcher (Credit: Trinidad Soto, 2016)
Long-standing biases and gender stereotypes are steering girls and women away from science related fields. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), at present, less than 30% of people employed in research and experimental development (R&D) are women. In the Catalan CERCA research centres only the 27% of the group leaders are women, and female students are still a minority in the technical schools.
This 11th of February 2021 -the International Day of Women and Girls in Science- nine CRAG female researchers will put their grain of sand towards changing these statistics, by giving online talks to school students. Most of these researchers have joined the #100tífiques initiative, jointly organized by the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST) and the Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca i la Innovació (FCRI), with the support of the ‘Departament d’Educació de la Generalitat de Catalunya’. In its 3rd and largest edition, the #100tífiques event has paired more than 450 female researchers working in both private and public institutions with school groups from 6th grade of primary school and 1st grade of secondary school (11-13 years old). Due to the Covid-19 pandemia, the talks will be held online for the first time, which has allowed to bring the talks to schools located far from the research centres and universities.
As the researchers have learnt in a series of preparatory networking and training #100tífiques online events, the objective of the talks are to provide role models to the female students. Therefore, the researchers will talk about their scientific research, but also about their personal life, explaining how they were as students and what hobbies they have, breaking the stereotypes associated to scientists.
The CRAG female researchers participating in the event range from PhD students to group leaders, including personnel from the Communication Office. They are: Andrea Giordano, Andrea Martin, Belén Moro, Laura R. Botigué, Laura Zingaretti, Mani Deepija, Montse Martín, Raquel Álvarez and Zoila Babot.
Topics
Species
