WIRE-EUGAIN Workshop
"Sustainability and Gender Balance – How to Retain Girls and Women in Computer Science"
The EUGAIN COST Action organised the WIRE-EUGAIN Workshop (a full-day workshop) on 27 October 2021, as part of the ECSS 2021. This workshop was a follow-up of the previous WIRE Workshops (2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020) and open to all ECSS 2021 participants as well as invited EUGAIN members and ad-hoc participants.
The workshop was chaired by Karima Boudaoud, Université Côte d’Azur and Christopher Staff, Institute of Technology, Carlow.
This year, the workshop focused on sustainability in Computer Science and particularly on "How to retain girls and women in computer science" at all the career stages. Many studies have been conducted on how to attract girls and women in Computer Science but very few on how to retain them.
More specifically, the goal of the workshop this year was:
- Define first what sustainability in gender balance means in relation to retention;
- Understand then the reasons that push girls and women in Computer Science to leave - and consider whether there are different reasons in different cultures.
- Discuss mitigation measures to retain girls and women in Computer Science
- Exchange views on the best strategies to retain women in Academia
- See from a perspective of Science how to progress in more scientific approach when dealing with sustainability in gender balance;
- Involve in the debate all the actors concerned: Policy makers, Industry, Academia, Organisations and Associations dealing with gender balance.
- Extend the discussion about sustainability to diversity.
In addition, this year, we invited participants to send an extended abstract to collect their own scientific goals, actions, measures, best practices and recommendations. These abstracts will be published in a technical report.
The rundown of the workshop can be found here.
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European Network For Gender Balance in Informatics (EUGAIN) - COST Action 19122
COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is a funding agency for research and innovation networks. Our Actions help connect research initiatives across Europe and enable scientists to grow their ideas by sharing them with their peers. This boosts their research, career and innovation.