Equalities @ EECS

An article published on the Guardian describes how women’s research has been adversely affected by the covid-19 lockdown.

In April Dr Elizabeth Hannon, deputy editor of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, noticed that the number of article submissions she was receiving from women had dropped dramatically. Not so from men.

“Negligible number of submissions to the journal from women in the last month,” she posted on Twitter. “Never seen anything like it.” The response was an outpouring of recognition from frustrated female academics, saying they were barely coping with childcare and work during the coronavirus lockdown.

Link to full article.

STEMettes are running a series of online events presenting female role models, focussing on a different role model each week (we are now at the end of Week 6: Katherine Johnson week):

As more of us are home, and many schools will be closed over the next few weeks, Stemettes are joining you online – to keep you inspired, motivated and learning. Each week we’ll run 3 events across Zoom, Youtube Live and Instagram.

Find more info here: stemettes.org/onlineevents/.

International Women in Engineering Day is now in its seventh year, the 2020 campaign will be a year that is very different to the norm and we’re asking for your help to achieve this! INWED is an international awareness campaign which raises the profile of women in engineering and focuses attention on the amazing career opportunities available to girls in this exciting industry.

 

In 2020 we’re want to reach as many people as possible. If you have friends, relatives or colleagues in other countries we’re asking you to aim to involve them in your celebrations, They don’t need to be engineers, just appreciate the contribution that women engineers make. INWED HQ in the UK is now based from home, but we will still be planning our virtual activities to celebrate the day and will continue to co-ordinate your celebrations through our official INWED Activities page. We hope you will join us once again to celebrate the outstanding achievements of women engineers throughout the world. Taking place annually on 23 June, it’s your day, so get involved and help us #ShapeTheWorld this year!

Jobs.ac.uk is hosting a new women’s career event on 28 March 2020:

We are delighted to welcome you to our inaugural event, Women in STEM Careers 2020, hosted by jobs.ac.uk. At a time when women only account for 22% of the UK STEM workforce ^[1], the need for accurate representation within these sectors is increasingly high. As a result, there is a vast amount of opportunities being created for women who either wish to begin their career in STEM or progress from their current role. Our event aims to promote these opportunities by connecting attendees from across the UK with a selection of publically funded and charitable status organisations who are actively seeking to recruit talented women.

For more details and registration: https://blog.jobs.ac.uk/women-in-stem/

Carnegie UK Trust, Operation Black Vote and UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies have published a report on Race Inequality in the Workforce: Exploring connections between work, ethnicity and mental health.

Quoting from the report:

In this report, we present new data from Next Steps, a longitudinal study of the ‘millennial generation’ in England. The work reveals persistent issues around the relationships between employment, ethnicity and mental health and underlines that there are enduring inequalities in the workforce between ethnic groups. We find that Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) young adults continue to be at a greater risk of being unemployed than White young adults and that BAME groups are more likely to be in some form of precarious work. The evidence also confirms significant links between employment status and mental health, whereby being unemployed, a shift worker or on a zero-hours contract are all associated with a significantly greater risk of having poor mental ill-health at age 25.

The full report can be found here.

WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) at Queen Mary is hosting a film screening of ‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’ to mark International Women’s Day on 8th March.

For information and to register, visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/wiseqmul-presents-the-immortal-life-of-henrietta-lacks-tickets-94849482355

Queen Mary is one of 33 universities working with the Institute of Coding to bring together industry, government, higher education and outreach partners to create new courses and provide support that attracts fresh talent into digital careers. Together we are working to break down the barriers that discourage people from digital and are providing different, flexible ways to access digital courses and events.

On 24 and 25 Feburary 2020, the Institute of Coding will be hosting its 2nd annual conference. Named ‘Thinking differently about lifelong learning’, this year’s conference will focus on how lifelong learning initiatives could revolutionise the nation’s digital sector, making it a space that promotes diversity and inclusion.

As the ET reports, ‘the agenda will be delivered by representatives of digital giants such as Google, Amazon Web Services, BT, IBM, and some of the country’s most respected universities, setting the conference up to be a standout event of 2020.

New research on the factors that inspire people to pursue digital careers will be shared by the IoC and Deloitte. Keynote speakers (photo) include Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon, co-founder and CEO of the Stemettes; and Timandra Harkness, presenter, comedian and author of Big Data: Does Size Matter?”

You can find the full conference programme here.