FESTA

Female Empowerment in Science and Technology Academia

 Partecipanti

Mappa

 Word cloud

Esplora la "nuvola delle parole (Word Cloud) per avere un'idea di massima del progetto.

 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'FESTA is concerned with implementing changes in the working environment of academic researchers, to encourage female researchers to stay and make a career in the academy and to create organizational environments where their competence is valued and fostered. In particular, we address the working environment of researchers in the lower levels of their careers, to make it possible for them to advance to the ranks of highest scientific expertise. The different partner institutions will take actions on some core issues, which have seldom been directly addressed in previous research or implementation, in particular on the level of the daily environment of researchers: formal and informal decision making processes, meeting cultures, PhD supervision, perceptions of excellence in hiring processes and in the work environment, and resistance to equality measures. FESTA partners are geographically diverse and come from universities and research institutions of different sizes and with different histories. The consortium consists of researchers in science and technology, social scientists with a solid background in research on gender in academia, persons with governing and administrative positions on high levels in the institutional hierarchy, and gender equality officers. As gender equality projects are seldom simply transferable from one context to another, FESTA actions will be carefully analyzed in regard to the contextual success and failure factors. FESTA will come out with a variety of measures which research environments in different European contexts can use in addressing core issues in their gender equality work. These will be formulated as toolkits and manuals and disseminated both nationally and on the European level in workshops, conferences and through the different networks of the FESTA partners, in addition to web and paper publishing.

Starting date: 1st day of the month after the last signature of the GA parties'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Despite the growing number of women in science and technology positions over the last years, a shortage of women researchers continues to reverberate through senior ranks. An EU-funded project aspires to change the climate of discrimination in scientific occupations, presenting a framework to help institutions rethink their practices and properly address gender imbalance.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Aiming to improve the working environment of women researchers early in their career, the 'Female empowerment in science and technology academia' (http://www.festa-europa.eu/ (FESTA)) project has brought together scientists from a range of different academic disciplines.

Different partner institutions will work on core issues that have seldom been addressed.

These include PhD supervision, perceptions of excellence in hiring processes and in the work environment, and resistance-to-equality measures.FESTA wants to introduce changes in the daily life of women researchers, creating a proper organisational environment where their competence can be valued and fostered.

For this reason, it is preparing toolkits and guidelines for research organisations that deem it necessary to address gender imbalance but are not sure how to properly go about it.

For the design of trans-European toolkits, interviews were conducted in all partner institutions to understand issues in the local context, identify targeted actions and provide solid contextualised material to work on.

Furthermore, project partners collected statistical data to help different groups at each institution use the information in the best way possible to promote women's careers.Dissemination activities during the first phase of the FESTA project brought forward the fundamental, but previously often neglected, starting point for any structural change towards improving gender equality: It is not the women but rather the organisational context that causes problems in gender and science issues.By the end of the project, the participating institutions will have learned how to take action when structural biases are detected, and how to increase transparency and active participation of women in formal and informal decision-making processes as well as improve communication within the workplace.