Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-05-20-Speech-2-483"
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"en.20080520.34.2-483"2
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"Mr President, coming from a science background myself, I welcome this important discussion on women in the field of science and technology. In principle I agree with Mrs Thomsen’s report, which seeks to identify the barriers that account for the under-representation of women in science and I agree that most education systems in Europe continue to sustain gender stereotypes.
Her report notes other factors that contribute to the under-representation of women in this field and regrettably in many other professional fields as well. These factors include the negative impact of career breaks for family reasons and restrictions on mobility due to family responsibilities. I applaud its call on the Commission and, more particularly, Member States to take positive action on a number of fronts – education, childcare, social security, parental leave – as well as making available adequate funding in order to improve the prospects for women seeking to further careers in or to re-enter science after rearing a family.
We need competent women at all levels of society – and indeed we need women with scientific backgrounds in politics also – but I believe we will never achieve this by setting quotas on gender participation. Instead, we should aim for more transparency on recruitment, for mentoring schemes, strengthening the networking among women scientists, the promotion of female researchers as role models and of course the adequate availability of funding to encourage women in science, while maintaining fairness and equality. I believe that most women scientists would agree with this.
In 2003 in my own country, Ireland, a Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) Committee was set up to make recommendations on strategies to increase the uptake among women and girls of science subjects and higher level-mathematics at second level and to increase the number of females choosing science engineering and technology courses at third level. This committee is chaired by Professor Jane Grimson of Trinity College, Dublin, an eminent academic in her own right.
We also have an organisation known as WITS – Women in Technology and Science, which was inaugurated in 1999. We have the Wiser Workforce Project, which is a return-to-work initiative for women scientists. We have Science Foundation Ireland, which has launched four programmes to address under-representation of women in Irish science and engineering.
Finally, these schemes aim to encourage and support the development of sustainable mechanisms and practices which will ensure that women researchers have an equal opportunity to compete on the basis of their scientific expertise, knowledge and potential."@en1
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