GLOBAL WOMEN INVENTORS AND INNOVATORS NETWORK
http://www.euwiin.eu/
EUWIIN IS PUTTING THE SPOTLIGHT ON EUROPEAN WOMEN’S INVENTIVE & INNOVATIVE IDEAS
It is with great pleasure that the Global Women Inventors & Innovators Network (GWIIN) in partnership with London Metropolitan University proudly present the first European Women Inventors & Innovators Network of activities across Europe. This follows the successful development of initiatives for inventive & innovative women across the United Kingdom, Asia, Africa & Latin America.
EUWIIN is working to build opportunities for creative, inventive and innovative women across Europe. EUWIIN promotes invention and innovation in the workplace, in the business context, in learning environments and at home. EUWIIN wholeheartedly supports the introduction of new products, services and processes.
EUWIIN serves creative, inventive and innovative women to raise aspirations, improve self confidence and self esteem, increase motivation and broaden horizons and experience. EUWIIN recognises the business case for enabling more European women to succeed and yield better productivity, profitability and services. EUWIIN encourages women to discover training, new perspectives and a range of experiences so that they and Europe reap the returns.

Intelligent Women, A Repository of Relevant and Reliable Information about Women in Science.Do join us as Co-Owner at http://intelligent-women.blogspot.com/
**********************************************************************************National National Science Foundation Online Document System.
New Study Says Women and Their Managers Differ on Career Advancement in Chemical Companies
URL : http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=pr07031
March 22, 2007
During this Women's History Month, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has released a report called It's Elemental, the results of a 3-year study of women's careers in the chemical industry. The first study of its kind, the findings reveal that women and their managers have differing attitudes and perceptions about career advancement."While there have been some surveys of women on academic career tracks, no comprehensive work exists on women and their managers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) intensive industrial settings," said Judith Giordan, who is currently on detail from the University of Southern Mississippi as a program director for NSF's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program. "As industry is the largest employer of these graduates, we wanted to determine and share how women can get ahead and what could hold them back from the career success they want."One finding reveals that managers, particularly male managers, rated the ability to relocate higher than women did as a factor for career success. Whereas women rated two items as high on their list--"blowing your own horn is a key element for success and recognition" and "…to be on highly visible projects where contributions can be recognized and rewarded"--managers rated those components as lower priorities for career advancement.Another finding was that some women still perceive sexist discrimination, which may impact their career advancement. Women who felt positive about their work environments reported lower levels of discrimination. The results indicate that top-level managers still need to develop and enforce policies and initiatives to combat sexism in the workplace."It's very clear from the data that women want to advance, and they're willing to do what it takes," said Ruth Fassinger, principal investigator for the project and professor and interim chair of the Department of Counseling and Personnel Services at the University of Maryland, College Park. "Women stated they want support and opportunities to get ahead. To go along with this, both the women and managers we surveyed said that mentoring is hugely important. We are conducting a follow-up study on mentoring so that we can better understand how it can be successfully structured."Researchers compared women with their managers in five critical areas: success and advancement; workplace support and climate; mentoring; home-work intersection; and company initiatives. Each chapter includes an analysis of the data. Key points and recommendations for managers and companies are offered at the end of each chapter."While women are taking on leadership roles in STEM industries, the number of women in those roles and the rate at which it is happening is disappointingly slow," said Giordan. "Opportunities for the next generation of women to thrive in industrial settings will increase as younger women coming up through the pipeline are better informed and prepared."Career development workshops are planned for women in undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral positions to help them prepare and learn from the findings. The report has been sent to senior managers at more than 50 companies.The study was conducted by the University of Maryland, College Park, under a grant from NSF.Industry managers who would like to discuss the report can contact Fassinger or Giordan at rfassing@umd.edu or judith.giordan@usm.edu. The report, It's Elemental: Enhancing Career Success for Women in the Chemical Industry, is available at http://www.education.umd.edu/EDCP/enhance_site/.-NSF-Media ContactsDana Topousis, National Science Foundation (703) 292-7750 dtopousi@nsf.govProgram ContactsJudith C. Giordan, National Science Foundation (703) 292-5038 jgiordan@nsf.govPrincipal InvestigatorsRuth Fassinger, University of Maryland, College Park (301) 405-2873 rfassing@umd.eduRelated WebsitesProject ENHANCE: http://www.education.umd.edu/EDCP/enhance_site/The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, with an annual budget of $5.91 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 1,700 universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 40,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes nearly 10,000 new funding awards. The NSF also awards over $400 million in professional and service contracts yearly.
__________________________________

NSF Research on Gender in Science and Engineering Program

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for the Research on Gender in Science and Engineering Program (GSE) (NSF 07-501)
http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf07024
Type : Program Announcements & Information
Subtype : Education

Sample questions:
I want to make a documentary about women scientists, their lives and work. Would that be appropriate for Outreach and Communication?

I run a very successful intervention for girls and would like to broaden the number of girls involved by managing new projects in several locations. Would this be appropriate for Extension Services?

If I am not a social/behavioral scientist or education researcher, may I still apply to the GSE program?

What kinds of projects is GSE currently funding?

I would like to design an intervention that will give girls and/or women hands-on experiences in STEM education and/or research. Would such an activity fall within the scope of the GSE program?

I’d like to conduct research on the underrepresentation of women faculty members in STEM fields. Could I propose a research project that addresses tenure-track and family policies?

I want to develop a new course in Computer Science that would incorporate gender neutral/friendly/equitable practices into the curriculum. Would that fall under the scope of the GSE program?

I am interested in the underrepresentation of boys and/or men of color in STEM fields. Could I propose a research project where the research questions of interest involve boys?

The Invisible Sex (Gender in Prehistory)

THE INVISIBLE SEX
A Smithsonian Institution book uncovering the true role of women in prehistory
By J. M. Adovasio, Olga Soffer and Jake Page

In The Invisible Sex, the authors present an exciting new look at prehistory, arguing that women invented all kinds of critical materials, including the clothing necessary for life in colder climates, the ropes used to make rafts that enabled long-distance travel by water and nets used for communal hunting. Even more important, women played a central role in the development of language and social life�in short, in our becoming human. In this eye-opening book, a new story about women in prehistory emerges with provocative implications for our assumptions about gender today.

Nature 2007, Leaks in the Pipeline

Article source: Nature Vol. 446 (7133) March 2007
Leaks in the pipeline
by Mary Anne Holmes1 and Suzanne O'Connell2
http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2007/070315/full/nj7133-346a.html

Mary Anne Holmes is at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.
Suzanne O'Connell is at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.
To discuss this article, contact the editor

Why do women remain curiously absent from the ranks of academia?

Mary Anne Holmes
Family issues can cause women to abandon academia at every rung of the career ladder. Policy-makers have addressed some ways to get more women on to the lower rungs of the ladder. But solutions at the higher steps — tenure and beyond — are proving a little more difficult.

In the United States, the past 30 years have seen a dramatic rise in the number of women gaining PhDs in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, according to the National Science Foundation (NSF). In the geosciences, the proportion of PhD degrees awarded to women has increased from none in 1966 to 46% in 2003. But, according to a database held by the American Geological Institute, there are 'leaks' in the geosciences pipeline for academics — particularly in the hiring for assistant professor positions. In the field, 42% of BS/BA degree recipients, 45% of MS recipients and 39% of PhD recipients are women. But only 26% of assistant professors, 14% of tenured associate professors and 8% of full professors are women.


Suzanne O'Connell
The biggest barrier lies in the structure of academia. Women may hesitate to apply for tenure-track jobs because they lack role models among the upper echelons. We conducted focus groups of active, employed geoscientists, including students, and found that nearly half of the women participants seriously considered leaving the geosciences at some point in their career, as opposed to only one-third of the men. The reasons for considering leaving are strikingly different between the two genders: the top two reasons for women were family issues (caring for children or elderly relatives) and problems with advisers (mostly a failure to communicate). By far and away, the main reason males considered leaving was an uncertain job market — a distant second was a tie between difficult classes and choosing the wrong sub-discipline. We think that 'problems with advisers' is a barrier that can be minimized by training junior (and willing senior) faculty members in mentorship.

Clearly women's biological clocks play a role. Apart from medicine, in what other profession is it common for careers to begin in the early to mid-thirties? A new assistant professor, with an average age of 33, is facing the most intense work period of his or her life. For women at this age, fertility declines every year while the chances of a miscarriage or conceiving a child with Down's syndrome increase. Few graduate schools have provisions for family leave. Most graduate students answer directly to a single PhD adviser, who might not allow time off for childbearing.

More universities should provide paid family leave for graduate students and faculty members. Only one-third of PhD-granting institutions provide any sort of daycare for graduate students and most have no childbirth policy. Stanford University recently took the lead and introduced an automatic institution-wide childbirth policy for graduate students that includes six weeks' paid leave. Offering high-quality, affordable campus childcare will mitigate worries that could seriously lessen students' academic productivity.

Departments could actively recruit women and educate hiring committees. As departments often know about openings a couple of years in advance, potential candidates in broad subject areas can be identified and courted.

There should be an automatic extension to tenure so that junior female faculty members do not have to choose between children and their job. Tenured women continue to leave because of family responsibilities. In a 40-year academic career, why not allow a temporary (one to three years) part-time option? Better assistance in spousal employment would help as well. Pennsylvania State University, for example, has temporary two- to three-year spousal appointments.

Although overt discrimination against hiring women has mostly disappeared, unconscious biases persist. As noted previously in this column (L. Bornmann Nature 445, 566; 2007), gender bias can influence the awarding of grants and academic prizes. Unconscious bias in hiring and promotion has also been documented (B. J. Tesch et al. J. Am. Med. Assoc. 273, 1022–1025; 1995). There needs to be a concerted effort to bring this to an end.

Although overt discrimination against hiring women has mostly disappeared, unconscious biases persist.

To help explore some of these professional and structural impediments, we are convening a consortium of geoscientist academics in New England. This NSF-funded endeavour has three components: a week-long retreat to focus on writing in the absence of departmental and domestic distractions; skills workshops on topics such as strategic persuasion and negotiation; and workshops for departmental chairs to learn about unconscious bias and ways it can be overcome. With attention to these details, we hope that the science faculty will look more like the student body in 2027.




Intelligent Women, A Repository of Relevant and Reliable Information about Women in Science.
Do join us as Co-Owner at http://intelligent-women.blogspot.com/

National Science Foundation Releases Statistics on Women, Minorities and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering

March 5, 2007
http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=pr07021
News Releases on Social/Behavioral Sciences

REPORT URL: www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd


The National Science Foundation today released the latest statistics on women, minorities and persons with disabilities in science and engineering. The report focuses on education and employment statistics for these groups.

Figures and tables detail degrees earned, occupations, age, country of birth and salary. The latest figures are from 2004, and were updated in December 2006.

A complete update of the report is issued by NSF every two years. NSF obtains the data from many sources, including NSF surveys, other federal agencies and non-federal organizations.

The report is available at: www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd.

-NSF-

Women, it seems, often get a raw deal in science — so how can discrimination be tackled?

Nature 445, 566 (February 2007)
Recruitment Bias Cut
Women, it seems, often get a raw deal in science — so how can discrimination be tackled?
Lutz Bornmann
(He is a researcher at the Professorship for Social Psychology and Research on Higher Education at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich.)

http://ealerts.nature.com/cgi-bin24/DM/y/ecJA0SpU7m0HjB0BLFD0Eb
When it comes to applying for grants, woman seem to be at a disadvantage — they are potentially less likely to succeed than their male counterparts. So suggests a meta-analysis of 21 studies conducted by my colleagues Rüdiger Mutz and Hans-Dieter Daniel and I (see http://arxiv.org/abs/math.ST/ 0701537). The cause of this discrepancy is unknown. It could be that fewer women principal investigators apply for grants. Gender bias — whether implicit or explicit — could come into play. Or the explanation could be institutional; there are more men than women in high-ranking positions, meaning fewer women have a chance to make decisions.

There has been widespread acknowledgement of how gender affects scientific careers. A comprehensive review of the literature on gender differences in the careers of academic scientists by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), concludes: "Taken as a whole, the body of literature we reviewed provides evidence that women in academic careers are disadvantaged compared with men in similar careers. Women faculty earn less, are promoted less frequently to senior academic ranks, and publish less frequently than their male counterparts."

But the NSF doesn't address peer review as a component of this discrepancy. Conventionally, peer review is regarded as a sure guarantee of good science. It reassures us about the quality of scientific work and that tax-payers' money is well spent. Our meta-analysis suggests that there are robust gender differences in grant peer-review procedures, and our results line up with the NSF's broader conclusion on gender differences in the careers of academic scientists.

Whatever the cause, our paper also reports some ways to rule out gender bias — whether intentional or unintentional. One possible way to avoid bias in the grant peer-review process is to mask applicants' gender. In journal peer review, masking authors' gender has proved to be a satisfactory precaution against bias. But masking is not equally suitable for all types of submission. It is impossible to pass valid judgment on a short-communication manuscript without some personal knowledge of the author.

It is questionable, as well, whether the gender of the applicant in grant peer review should be masked. Apart from assessment of the proposed research, decisions are also based on the applicant's track record. The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in Heidelberg, Germany, is planning an experiment in which the committee in the research-fellowship selection process will be totally gender-blinded, according to EMBO's programme manager, Gerlind Wallon.

The first step to identify bias and tackle its potential sources is a continuous, professional evaluation of the selection process and its outcomes. A few years ago, our team analysed the peer-review selection process for the Boehringer Ingelheim Fund (BIF) fellowships (see Nature 430, 591; 2004). Although the selection process proved highly valid in identifying the most promising junior scientists, and there was no gender difference at postdoctoral level, we did find a slight gender bias in the selection of PhD students. The results were thoroughly discussed by the review committee and the foundation continued to monitor its selection process closely. This allowed the BIF to see a considerable increase in female applicants and scholars in the next few years, with nearly 50% of the 2006 PhD scholarships awarded to women. But according to Hermann Fröhlich, managing director of the BIF, the growing number of young women participating and succeeding in one of the most competitive selection processes for scholarships may be due to social change. And as the BIF evaluates young researchers and their projects at the earliest possible phase in the scientific career, its figures may indicate that large numbers of women have started to reach for the top in science.

The Pioneer Award for innovative research given by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) shows that there are other effective measures against gender bias. In 2004 there were no women among the 9 scientists chosen, but in 2005, 6 of the 13 winners were women, and in 2006, 4 of 13. After the first round, the NIH specifically encouraged women to apply, accepted only self-nominations rather than institutional submissions and spent more time training its reviewers.

Women did very much better when only self-nominations were accepted, not institutional submissions.

Changes such as widening submission policies, 'masking' fellowship applicants and regularly evaluating the peer-review process have started closing the gender gap in grant success. Other moves will help women rise to higher levels of leadership in science and erase unintentional gender bias. The Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy of the US National Academies proposes setting up programmes to provide women with mentoring and support. It also aims to restructure hiring and promotion procedures to reduce bias and encourage diversity. This will include training search committees and heads of department to recognize bias, and to reduce it.