MCAA at Gender Summit...

MCAA at Gender Summit Europe GS9 Gianna Avellis and Natalia Balcazar attended the Gender Summit Europe in Brussels 8-9 November 2016 presenting a poster on "Closing the Female Leadership Gap in Research, Industry and Business). They were there also to contact speakers at the bi-annual Award and Conference EUWIIN2017 (EUropean Women Innovators and Inventors Network) to be held at University of Bari 28-29 June 2017, co-organised by GEMS WG . The Gender Summit Europe GS9 was held this year, thanks to the invitation of FEMM (the Parliament Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality), at the European Parliament the first morning and then it moved to BEL Brussels building. The focus of discussion at the Parliament was the role of policy in achieving societal well-being through science and technology. Commissioner Carlos Moedas addressed the audience with a video outlining the “She Figures” report. Main issues were why more women are choosing the career in science and what we can do to avoid the leaky pipeline. He mentioned how women are still underrepresented in the innovation enterprises and that there is a need to revise the “criteria”, because women are performing so well as men but they are not reaching the upmost positions. He then concluded that each research plan should have a Gender Equality Plan (GEP). Elisabeth Pullitzer, co-founder of Gender Summit, underlined how GS has evolved into a global platform where scientific evidence and good practice is shared to reach consensus on when and how gender issues impact on quality of science knowledge, practice and institutions. GS partners leading the work done by GS in different regions reported on the progress made so far and the impact for the future. There are now Gender Summit platforms in Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific and Africa. During this process the GS has created a global community of experts and practitioners, who offer a wealth of expertise and experience for applying the gender lens to inform policy design and implementation.