International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2022
From Mary Anning to Professor Sarah Gilbert – Are you next?
Countless women have contributed immensely to the advancement of science across all fields. From Mary Anning’s discoveries of full fossils of dinosaurs in the 1800s that pushed humanity towards a scientific understanding of evolution to Professor Sarah Gilbert whose team developed the AstraZeneca vaccine that is estimated to have saved at least 1 million lives and prevented another 50 million Covid-19 cases.
The 11th of February has been declared as the “International Day of Women and Girls in Science” by the United Nations in an effort to commemorate, celebrate and inspire the full and equal access and participation of women and girls in science. Here, at Inova Consultancy we are celebrating the long-lasting positive impact of our projects that have focused on developing the employability and soft skills of women in STEM. Over our 20 years, we have led and participated in many projects that aimed to increase the employability and soft skills of women in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics.
Currently, we are running two projects in Europe – funded by the European Commission – and we are in the process of delivering an exciting new programme in México and Perú – funded by the British Council.
FemSTEM is developing a platform that will provide women with positive role models and encourage them to take the next steps towards their future careers in STEM. An online platform has been created that includes resources on the “Recruitment, Retention, Progression Framework”, an E-Coaching programme, and a face-to-face peer coaching programme to increase women’s soft skills and self-confidence. It also includes testimonials from 28 women in STEM who share their inspirational success stories! The FemSTEM project has also delivered a Coaching Circles™ programme that took place across five countries, (the UK, Italy, Luxemburg, Greece, and Spain) with a total of 72 women with a STEM background engaged in the sessions.
MentoraSTEAM seeks to raise awareness and improve understanding about the challenges migrant women face along with the development of an innovative tailor-made training programme to address migrant women’s needs and support them to access and succeed in STEAM careers. The project started in September 2020 and has recently published a “Guide for Policymakers Boosting Female Migrants’ Employability in the STEAM Sector” that can be found on the project’s website here. The next phase of the project will include the MentoraSTEAM Employability Booster Training Programme that aims to strengthen and build the self-efficacy, self-belief, confidence and subsequently the employability of highly skilled migrant women with a STEAM background. Participants from England, Spain, Finland and Italy will have the opportunity to participate in the training programme for free!
Finally, the “Mentoring in Action – Women and Girls in STEM” Programme taking place in México and Perú is now well underway! We have delivered two out of the total five Virtual Live Training sessions for women in science in México, supporting the development of self-efficacy, the knowledge of the gender gap, and the development of mentoring knowledge, and another five Virtual Live Training sessions for men and women senior scientists and researchers in Perú. All the sessions are supported by an online training platform aiming to develop a group of future mentors to support more women in the sector. We are now getting ready to deliver a live World Café event in March 2022to celebrate the programme and further develop networks and knowledge!
Feeling inspired yet? Are you a woman with a passion for science? Are you ready to make history? We certainly hope so!
To keep up with these projects you can follow these pages on Facebook:
by Eric Wijmenga
Co-Director/Finance Manager
Eric is Inova’s Co-Director and Finance Manager. He is also the founder and director of our subsidiary Inova Education, an educational marketing and recruitment agency, established in 1996 and working across LATAM. Inova Education delivers services in partnership with UK HEIs, British embassies, national funding bodies, the British Council and Chevening teams across LATAM.