Informatics Europe proudly announces the Minerva Informatics Equality Award devoted to initiatives seeking to encourage and support the careers of women in Informatics research and education. The fifth of this annual award will be presented in October 2020 and is sponsored by Google.
The Informatics Europe Minerva Informatics Equality Award recognises best practices in Departments or Faculties of European Universities or Research Institutes and Labs that have been demonstrated to have a positive impact for women. On a three-year cycle the award will focus each year on a different stage of the career pipeline:
Developing the careers of female faculty, including retention and promotion;
Supporting the transition of female PhD and postdoctoral researchers into faculty positions;
Encouraging female students to enroll in Computer Science/Informatics programmes and retaining them.
The 2020 Award is devoted to gender equality initiatives and policies supporting the transition of female PhD and postdoctoral researchers into faculty positions.
The Award seeks to celebrate successful initiatives that have had a measurable impact on the careers of women within the institution. Such initiatives can serve as exemplars of best practices within the community, with the potential to be widely adopted by other institutions. Submissions will need to demonstrate the impact that has been achieved.
For 2020 examples of impact could include an improved career development and better agreements on career planning for female PhD students and postdocs as recorded in objective surveys of staff experience, and increasing numbers of female faculty.
The Award carries a prize of EUR 5,000.
The Award will be given to a Department or Faculty to be used for further work on supporting the transition of female PhD or postdocs to faculty positions. To be eligible, institutions must be located in one of the member or candidate member countries of the Council of Europe, or Israel. Institutions associated with members of the WIRE Working Group and of the Award committee are not eligible.
The Award committee will review and evaluate each proposal. It reserves the right to split the prize between different applications. Moreover, noteworthy runners up may also be included as exemplars of best practice in future Informatics Europe publications.
Contact information of the Head/Director of the applying Department or Faculty and the responsible for the application (who can be the same);
A brief summary or abstract (100 words or less) which can be made public;
Description of the initiative (max 2 pages);
Evidence of its impact (max 2 pages);
An optional reference list (which may include URLs of supporting material);
Optionally, one or two letters of support. The letters of support may come, for example, from female staff members who have benefited from the scheme;
An indication of whether the submission can be considered as a runner up (if it does not win the award) and be included as an exemplar of best practice in future Informatics Europe publications.
Deadlines:
Full submissions: 15 June 2020
Notification of winner(s): 1 August 2020
The Award will be presented at the 16th European Computer Science Summit, which will be held online on 26-28 October 2020, where a representative of the winning institution(s) will be invited to give a talk on their achievements.
Award Committee:
Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Chalmers University of Technology and Mälardalen University, Sweden (Chair)
Ivona Brandic, TU Wien, Austria
Sylvia Ilieva, Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", Bulgaria
Dympna O'Sullivan, TU Dublin, Ireland
Olaf Owe, University of Oslo, Norway
Alexander Serebrenik, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands.
Further inquiries:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
2021 Minerva Informatics Equality Award
We proudly announce the Minerva Informatics Equality Award devoted to initiatives seeking to encourage and support the careers of women in Informatics research and education. The sixth of these annual awards will be presented in October 2021 and is sponsored by Google.
The Minerva Informatics Equality Award recognises best practices in Departments or Faculties of European Universities or Research Institutes and Labs that have been demonstrated to have a positive impact for women. On a three-year cycle the award will focus each year on a different stage of the career pipeline:
Developing the careers of female faculty, including retention and promotion;
Supporting the transition of female PhD and postdoctoral researchers into faculty positions;
Encouraging female students to enrol in Computer Science/Informatics programmes and retaining them.
The 2021 Award is devoted to gender equality initiatives encouraging female students to enrol in Computer Science/Informatics programmes and retaining them.
The Award seeks to celebrate successful initiatives that have had a measurable impact on the recruitment and support of female students within the institution. Such initiatives can serve as exemplars of best practices within the community, with the potential to be widely adopted by other Institutions.
For 2021 examples of impact could include fostering gender balance in all aspects of students’ education, better admission, recruitment and graduation rates for female students, better gender ratio of students receiving stipends, scholarships and other financial support, improved curriculum, designed based on gender analysis, as recorded in objective surveys of staff and student experience, etc.
The Award carries a prize of EUR 5,000.
The Award will be given to a Department or Faculty to be used for further work on encouraging the recruitment and support of female students. To be eligible, institutions must be located in one of the member or candidate member countries of the Council of Europe, or Israel. Institutions associated with members of the Award Committee are not eligible.
The Award committee, with participation of members from the EUGAIN COST Action, will review and evaluate each proposal. It reserves the right to split the prize between different applications. Moreover, noteworthy runners up may also be included as exemplars of best practice in future Informatics Europe publications.
The proposal should include:
Contact information of the Head/Director of the applying Department or Faculty and the responsible for the application (who can be the same);
A brief summary or abstract (100 words or less) which can be made public;
Description of the initiative (max 2 pages);
Evidence of its impact (max 2 pages);
An optional reference list (which may include URLs of supporting material);
Optionally, one or two letters of support. The letters of support may come, for example, from female students who have benefited from the scheme;
An indication of whether the submission can be considered as a runner up (if it does not win the award) and be included as an exemplar of best practice in future Informatics Europe publications.
Deadlines:
Full submissions: 15 June 2021
Notification of winner(s): 1 August 2021
The Award Ceremony, jointly organized by EUGAIN and Informatics Europe, will be held at the 17th European Computer Science Summit, 25-27 October 2021 in Madrid (if the COVID-19 situation allows), where a representative of the winning institution(s) will be invited to give a talk on their achievements.
Award Committee:
Susan Eisenbach, Imperial College London, UK (Chair)
Hagit Attiya, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
Monica Landoni, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
Brenda Murphy, University of Malta, Malta
Ute Schmid, University of Bamberg, Germany
Further inquiries:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
2017 Minerva Informatics Equality Award
Informatics Europe proudly announces the second Minerva Informatics Equality Award devoted to initiatives which seek to encourage and support the careers of women in Informatics research and education. The second of this annual award will be presented in October 2017 and is sponsored by Google.
The Informatics Europe Minerva Informatics Equality Award recognizes best practices in Departments or Faculties of European universities or research labs that have been demonstrated to have a positive impact for women. On a three-year cycle the award will focus each year on a different stage of the career pipeline:
Developing the careers of female faculty, including retention and promotion;
Supporting the transition of female PhD and postdoctoral researchers into faculty positions;
Encouraging female students to enroll in Computer Science/Informatics programmes and retaining them.
The 2017 Award is devoted to initiatives supporting the transition of female PhD and postdoctoral researchers into faculty positions.
The Award seeks to celebrate successful initiatives that have had a measurable impact on the careers of women within the institution. Such initiatives can serve as exemplars of best practices within the community, with the potential to be widely adopted by other institutions. Nominations will need to demonstrate the impact that has been achieved.
For 2017 examples of impact could include an improved career development and better agreements on career planning for female PhD students and postdocs as recorded in objective surveys of staff experience, and increasing numbers of female faculty.
The Award carries a prize of EUR 5,000
The Award will be given to a Department or Faculty to be used for further work on supporting the transition of female PhD or post-docs to faculty positions. To be eligible, nominated institutions must be located in one of the member or candidate member countries of the Council of Europe, or Israel. Institutions associated with members of the Informatics Europe Board and of the Award panel are not eligible.
The Award panel will review and evaluate each proposal. It reserves the right to split the prize between at most two different proposals. Moreover, noteworthy runners up may also be included as exemplars of best practice in future Informatics Europe publications.
The proposal should include:
Contact information for the Head of the nominated Department or Faculty and the nominator (who can be the same);
A brief summary or abstract (100 words or less) which can be made public.
Description of the initiative (max 2 pages);
Evidence of its impact (max 2 pages);
An optional reference list (which may include URLs of supporting material);
Optionally, one or two letters of support. The letters of support may come, for example, from female staff members who have benefited from the scheme.
Deadlines:
Full nominations: June 1, 2017
Notification of winner(s): August 1, 2017
The Award will be presented at the 13th European Computer Science Summit, in Lisbon, October 23-25, 2017, where a representative of the winning institution will be invited to give a talk on their achievements.
Award Panel:
Christine Choppy, Professor of Informatics, University Paris 13 (SPC), France (Chair)
Serge Abiteboul, Senior Researcher, Inria, France (co-chair Comité Parité-Égalité)
Tibor Bosse, Associate Professor of Informatics, VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands (Gender Equality Officer)
Gyöngyi Bujdosó, Professor of Informatics, University Debrecen, Hungary
Monica Divitini, Professor in Cooperation Technologies, IDI-NTNU, Norway
Anna Ingólfsdóttir, Professor of Informatics, University Reykjavik, Iceland
Mema Roussopoulos, Associate Professor of Computer Science, University of Athens, Greece
Letizia Tanca, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Further inquiries:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
2018 Minerva Informatics Equality Award
Informatics Europe proudly announces the third Minerva Informatics Equality Award devoted to initiatives which seek to encourage and support the careers of women in Informatics research and education. The third of this annual award will be presented in October 2018 and is sponsored by Google.
The Informatics Europe Minerva Informatics Equality Award recognizes best practices in Departments or Faculties of European Universities or Research Institutes and Labs that have been demonstrated to have a positive impact for women. On a three-year cycle the award will focus each year on a different stage of the career pipeline:
Developing the careers of female faculty, including retention and promotion;
Supporting the transition of female PhD and postdoctoral researchers into faculty positions;
Encouraging female students to enrol in Computer Science/Informatics programmes and retaining them.
The 2018 Award is devoted to initiatives encouraging female students to enrol in Computer Science/Informatics programmes and retaining them.
The Award seeks to celebrate successful initiatives that have had a measurable impact on the recruitment and support of female students within the institution. Such initiatives can serve as exemplars of best practices within the community, with the potential to be widely adopted by other Institutions.
For 2018 examples of impact could include fostering gender balance in all aspects of students’ education, better admission, recruitment and graduation rates for female students, better gender ratio of students receiving stipends, scholarships and other financial support, improved curriculum, designed based on gender analysis, as recorded in objective surveys of staff and student experience, etc.
The Award carries a prize of EUR 5,000.
The Award will be given to a Department or Faculty to be used for further work on enforcing the recruitment and support of female students. To be eligible, nominated institutions must be located in one of the member or candidate member countries of the Council of Europe, or Israel. Institutions associated with members of the Informatics Europe Board and of the Award panel are not eligible. For organizations with more than one Department or Institute, applications coming only from the Department or the Institute with which an evaluation panel member or an Informatics Europe Board member is affiliated will not be considered.
The Award panel will review and evaluate each proposal. It reserves the right to split the prize between different applications. Moreover, noteworthy runners up may also be included as exemplars of best practice in future Informatics Europe publications.
The proposal should include:
Contact information for the Head of the nominated Department or Faculty and the nominator (who can be the same);
A brief summary or abstract (100 words or less) which can be made public;
Description of the initiative (max 2 pages);
Evidence of its impact (max 2 pages);
An optional reference list (which may include URLs of supporting material);
Optionally, one or two letters of support. The letters of support may come, for example, from female staff members who have benefited from the scheme;
An indication of whether the nomination can be considered as a runner up (if it does not win the award) and be included as an exemplar of best practice in future Informatics Europe publications.
Deadlines:
Full submissions: June 1, 2018
Notification of winner(s): August 1, 2018
The Award will be presented at the 14th European Computer Science Summit, in Gothenburg (Sweden), October 8-10, 2018, where a representative of the winning institution(s) will be invited to give a talk on their achievements.
Award Panel:
Panagiota Fatourou, Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH) and University of Crete, Greece (Chair)
Liliana Cucu, INRIA, France
Susan Eisenbach, Imperial College London, UK
Rachid Guerraoui, EPFL, Switzerland
Patricia Lago, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Kurt Mehlhorn, Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik, Germany
Dana Petcu, West University of Timisoara, Romania
Assaf Schuster, Technion, Israel
Further inquiries:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
2022 Minerva Informatics Equality Award
We proudly announce the Minerva Informatics Equality Award devoted to initiatives seeking to encourage and support the careers of women in informatics research and education. Coming into its seventh year, the Award will be presented in October 2022, sponsored by Google.
The Minerva Informatics Equality Award recognises best practices in Departments/Faculties of European Universities or Research Institutes and Labs that have been demonstrated to have a positive impact for women. On a three-year cycle the award will focus each year on a different stage of the career pipeline:
Developing the careers of female faculty, including retention and promotion;
Supporting the transition of female PhD and postdoctoral researchers into faculty positions;
Encouraging female students to enrol in computer science/informatics programmes and retaining them.
The 2022 Award is devoted to gender equality initiatives and policies to develop the careers of female faculty, including retention and promotion.
The Award seeks to celebrate successful initiatives that have had a measurable impact on the careers of women within the institution. Such initiatives can serve as exemplars of best practices within the community, with the potential to be widely adopted by other institutions. Submissions will need to demonstrate the impact that has been achieved.
For 2022, examples of impact could include an improved success rate in recruiting, retaining and promoting female staff, increased satisfaction scores from objective surveys of staff experience, achievement of 'beacon' status (i.e. being used as an exemplar within national or regional initiatives).
The Award carries a prize of EUR 5,000.
The Award will be given to a Department or Faculty to be used for further work on promoting gender equality. To be eligible for the award, applying institutions must be located in one of the member or candidate member countries of the Council of Europe, or Israel. Institutions associated with members of the Award Committee are not eligible. For organizations with more than one Departments or Institutes, applications coming only from the Department or the Institute with which an Award Committee member is affiliated will not be considered.
The Award committee reserves the right to split the prize between different applications. Moreover, noteworthy runners up may also be included as exemplars of best practice in future Informatics Europe publications.
The submission should include:
Contact information of the Head/Director of the applying Department or Faculty and the responsible person for the application (who can be the same);
A brief summary or abstract (100 words or less) which can be made public;
Description of the initiative (max 2 pages);
Evidence of its impact (max 2 pages);
An optional reference list (which may include URLs of supporting materials);
Optionally, one or two letters of support. The letters of support may come, for example, from female faculty who have benefited from the scheme, or from the Dean/Head of the organization of the applying Institution confirming impact;
An indication of whether the submission can be considered as a runner up (if it does not win the award) and be included as an exemplar of best practice in future Informatics Europe publications.
Submissions not conforming to the above rules and applications outside of the scope of the current cycle of the Award will be rejected without consideration.
Key Dates:
Submission Deadline: 30 June 2022
Notification of winner(s): August 2022
Award Ceremony: October 24-26, 2022
The Award will be presented during the 18th European Computer Science Summit (ECSS), which will be held in Hamburg, Germany, October 24-26, 2022, where a representative of the winning institution(s) will be invited to give a talk on their achievements.
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
* Seven out of nine award committee members are also members of the EUGAIN European Network For Gender Balance in Informatics, the Cost Action initiated by the Women in Research and Education group of Informatics Europe in 2019, which currently has more than 100 members, with Informatics Europe as the Grant Holder Manager.
2019 Minerva Informatics Equality Award
Informatics Europe proudly announces the Minerva Informatics Equality Award devoted to initiatives seeking to encourage and support the careers of women in Informatics research and education. The fourth of this annual award will be presented in October 2019 and is sponsored by Google.
The Informatics Europe Minerva Informatics Equality Award recognizes best practices in Departments or Faculties of European Universities or Research Institutes and Labs that have been demonstrated to have a positive impact for women. On a three-year cycle the award will focus each year on a different stage of the career pipeline:
Developing the careers of female faculty, including retention and promotion;
Supporting the transition of female PhD and postdoctoral researchers into faculty positions;
Encouraging female students to enroll in Computer Science/Informatics programmes and retaining them.
The 2019 Award is devoted to gender equality initiatives and policies to develop the careers of female faculty.
The Award seeks to celebrate successful initiatives that have had a measurable impact on the careers of women within the institution. Such initiatives can serve as exemplars of best practices within the community, with the potential to be widely adopted by other institutions. Submissions will need to demonstrate the impact that has been achieved.
For 2019 examples of impact could include an improved success rate in recruiting, retaining and promoting female staff, increased satisfaction scores from objective surveys of staff experience, achievement of 'beacon' status (i.e. being used as an exemplar within national or regional initiatives).
The Award carries a prize of EUR 5,000.
The Award will be given to a Department or Faculty to be used for further work on enforcing the recruitment and support of female students. To be eligible, institutions must be located in one of the member or candidate member countries of the Council of Europe, or Israel. Institutions associated with members of the WIRE Working Group and of the Award panel are not eligible.
The Award panel will review and evaluate each proposal. It reserves the right to split the prize between different applications. Moreover, noteworthy runners up may also be included as exemplars of best practice in future Informatics Europe publications.
The proposal should include:
Contact information of the Head/Director of the applying Department or Faculty and the responsible for the application;
A brief summary or abstract (100 words or less) which can be made public;
Description of the initiative (max 2 pages);
Evidence of its impact (max 2 pages);
An optional reference list (which may include URLs of supporting material);
Optionally, one or two letters of support. The letters of support may come, for example, from female staff members who have benefited from the scheme;
An indication of whether the submission can be considered as a runner up (if it does not win the award) and be included as an exemplar of best practice in future Informatics Europe publications.
Deadlines:
Full submissions: June 1, 2019
Notification of winner(s): August 1, 2019
The Award will be presented at the 15th European Computer Science Summit, in Rome, October 28-30, 2019, where a representative of the winning institution(s) will be invited to give a talk on their achievements.
Award Panel:
Dana Petcu, Universitatea de Vest din Timișoara, Romania (Chair)
Josephina Antoniou, University of Central Lancashire, Cyprus
Maria Carla Calzarossa, Università di Pavia, Italy
Elisabetta Di Nitto, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
M.J. Escalona, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain
Maria Ganzha, Politechnika Warszawska, Poland
Ilona Heldal, Bergen University College, Norway
Aneta Karaivanova, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria
Olaf Owe, Unversity of Oslo, Norway
Laura Ricci, Università di Pisa, Italy
Further inquiries:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Develop female faculty
Gender-equality and Harassment Prevention Committees of IRISA and Inria Center of University of Rennes (2022 Winner)
Submitted by Directors of IRISA, Inria Center of University of Rennes, France, 2022
Initiatives taken: created in early 2017 at the initiative of a small group of women. The committee has grown and now gathers ca. 25 members and have initiated numerous actions to help women blossom and develop their careers in our 80%-masculine laboratory, including:
a mentoring programme, coaching for applications, women-only discussions, a library of feminist books, and a series of conferences;
an anti-harassment committee: a spin-off of the gender-equality committee, whose aim is to propose actions preventing moral and sexual harassment.
Gender-Equality Initiatives at the Faculty of Informatics of the TU Wien (2022 Winner)
Submitted by Faculty of Informatics of the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), Austria, 2022
Initiatives taken: starting with 2006, the Faculty has introduced many new measures within its development plan the active support for recruiting, promoting and retaining female academics. They constantly improve the gender-balance in early-career development and faculty positions through:
Submitted by TU Dublin Computer Science, Ireland, 2019
Initiatives taken: the SUCCESS initiative is a seven-year programme, started in 2012, which had a four strand approach:
The Source strand explicitly encouraged females to apply for each recruitment drive;
Career focused on female career and skills development initiatives;
Environment created a female-friendly culture and reputation, both within the School, across the organisation and across the third level sector in Ireland;
Support addressed practical supports for the specific difficulties experienced by female staff.
Submitted by: Department of Computer Science, Brunel University London, UK, 2022
Initiatives taken: The WE-CARE programme started as a response to the following issues recognised by the department:
advertised academic posts receive far fewer numbers of women applicants than men.
women may seek leadership opportunities less or take on higher administrative loads, leaving less time for career-enhancing research.
women apply for promotion less and do not progress in equal proportions as men to professor grades and feel less supported in their career progression.
To address these challenges, the initiatives have focused on three strategic aims – “Improve Recruitment,” “Improve Work Experience,” and “Support Career Development.”
Submitted by: Genome Research Limited, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Forum, UK, 2019
Initiatives taken: The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Programme at Genome Research Limited catalyses organisational culture change, develops partnerships, communicates activities and champions their women in science work at a national and international level. The activities focus on:
Representation - increasing the proportion of female applications for scientific leadership positions and the levels below this that can feed into the scientific pipeline;
Perceptions - dispelling myths and challenging misconceptions;
Achievement - ensuring that there are no gender barriers;
Progression - inspiring women and men at different stages of their scientific careers to progress to senior levels;
Pay - conducting gender pay gap analyses and working towards abolishing the gender pay gap.
Gender equality initiatives for the recruitment of female staff
Submitted by: University of Limerick, Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, and Lero – the Irish Software Research Centre, Ireland, 2019
Initiatives taken: Gender Action Plan containing following initiatives supporting the recruitment of female staff:
Gender Balance on recruitment and promotion boards;
Unconscious Bias training for all recruitment and promotion board members;
Actively encouraging women to apply for positions.
Submitted by: University of Maribor, Institute of Informatics, Slovenia, 2019
Initiatives taken: Ladies in Informatics initiative uniting female scientists with related research interests in the domains of Computer Science and Informatics. The initiative:
encourages the exchange of opinions and forming different research collaborations;
Submitted by Abo Akademi University, Turku, Finland, Department of Computer Science, 2016
Initiatives taken: Equality and Equal Treatment action plan to:
improve the participation and visibility of women
develop female role models and mentors
develop working conditions that suit both genders
allow for positive discrimination in case of gender representation under 40%
Boost female recruitment and careers
Submitted by Radboud University, the Netherlands, Institute for Computing and Information Sciences, 2016
Initiatives taken:
appointment of at least one female staff in the advisory appointment committee, equal or senior to the position advertised.
run EGERA (Effective Gender Equality in Research and Academia) workshop in the Institute , resulting in a Gender Awareness Training with recommendations for recruitment, support and promotion
Efforts for fair hiring procedures and career support
Submitted by the Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Engineering (ALICE), University of Groningen, 2017
Initiatives taken:
At least one female research staff member in every selection committee
Mentoring system with specific attention to female staff
The ‘Rosalind Franklin Fellowship’ for women researchers holding a PhD and willing to have a tenure-track position leading to a full professorship in a top European university.
Submitted by the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Robotics and Autonomous Systems (CDT-RAS), UK, 2021
Initiatives taken:
Student Recruitment - ensuring diversity on interview panels; monitoring marketing materials and website to ensure that they include female students; improving the recruitment strategy to include visits to universities by female staff, and female-only student open days; attracting students from various backgrounds such as psychology and cognitive sciences.
Training - Inclusive Recruitment Practice Training for Directors, lead and the Administration team, unconscious Bias Training for academics and professional support staff; mandatory online Diversity in the Workplace training course for PhD students; reflection on the commitment to diversity, balance of gender within the Advisory Board.
Student Retention and Support - Female Mentorship Programme; improving the curriculum by including courses on subject areas such as human-robot interaction into the teaching component; supporting cross-cohort activities, events and links to the wider PhD student communities to overcome the issue of isolation; providing female-only events such as hackathons, and support groups; implementing a personalised Technical Learning Portfolio approach to provide students with a flexible working pattern.
Enrolment and retention of female students in Computer Science programmes (2018 Winner)
Submitted by the Faculty of Information Systems and Applied Computer Sciences of the University of Bamberg, Germany, 2018
Initiatives taken: The Bamberg CS30 Strategy to reach a female/male ratio of at least 30% across all CS programmes contains 12 actions, among them:
Several mono- and co-educational programmes encouraging girls from 5 years (preschool) up to 18 years (senior high schoolers) to enroll in CS programmes;
Web-site providing online information about female role models;
Master degree “Computing in the Humanities" targeting students of both gender who choose CS later in their career;
Various mentoring and coaching programmes (e.g. "Frauennetzwerk", "CoachNet" ) , seminar course "Gender Aspects of Computer Science" aiming at retaining female students after enrollment in a CS programme and helping them to graduate successfully.
International Women´s Degree Program in Computer Science (2021 Runner-up)
Submitted by the Hochschule Bremen, Germany, 2021
Initiatives taken:
Bachelor´s study programme in Computer Science (CS) which is strictly single-sex during the first 3 semesters. No prior knowledge in CS is required.
The programme, which accepts only 36 students per year, emphasizes an interactive teaching approach and offers best individual support by professors, tutors and IT experts from companies.
Serious attention is paid to soft skills: teamwork, support in the labs by elder students, get-together-meetings, informal events with alumni.
The program provides the opportunity for a guided (in the dual option) or a self-made (in the non-dual option) career.
Computer Science for All (CS4All) - A Gender Balance Initiative (2018 Runner-up)
Submitted by the School of Computing of the Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland, 2018
Initiatives taken: CS4All initiative - a five year strategy to address recruitment and retention issues of female undergraduate Computer Science students including:
Actions to tackle retention (random attendance monitoring, weekly grading of practical lab work, written exam thresholds, revised module sequences to balance practical vs theory modules, etc.);
Actions to boost recruitment (new hybrid Bachelor's programme, free coding courses for non-tech female students, annual "Computing academy" for transition year students, etc.);
Actions to improve the Female Student experience (introducing student lab assistants into first year programming labs, creation of a female student community, etc.);
Submitted by the Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway, 2018
Initiatives taken:
Recruitment initiatives targeting girls from upper secondary schools (Technology Camp and Girl's Day);
Academic and social events to increase students' enjoyment and help them to build a good network (e.g. welcome days, networking lunches, film-viewing, excursions, game-evenings, etc.);
Activities to promote networking between female students and relevant business associates in the private sector (career network gatherings, company visits, etc.)
Organizing a computer study room reserved for female students.
Submitted by Department of Information Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics of the University of L’Aquila, Italy, 2021
Initiatives taken:
PinKamP, a 2-weeks intensive summer camp for girls of 3rd and 4th classes of high schools, with the twofold objective of 1) guiding young girls towards STEM careers and 2) removing possible barriers that prevents girls to choice STEM topics in university studies.
Three technological platforms are chosen (this year, drones, biomath, web site design) and related STEM subjects (problem solving, programming principles, mathematics fundamentals, graph theory) are selected within a hands-on project-based integrated system.
Submitted by the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science of the University of Basel, Switzerland, 2021.
Initiatives taken:
The goal of the association is to promote an unbiased and fair future for females in Computer Science and technology and to encouraging female students to pursue higher education and future career in academia.
Inviting renowned diverse speakers from universities, research institutes, and the private sector to offer insight into and discuss how they face diversity, equity, and inclusivity-related challenges in their respective communities.
Social networking, regular meetings, and book reading clubs for members of the association.
Workshops and coaching sessions for members of the association to equip them with the knowledge and skills to feel more confident in the CS field.
Submitted by the School of Computer Science and Engineering of the University of Malaga, Spain, 2021
Initiatives taken:
Technological campus for girls at the Compulsory Secondary Education level (CSE) between 12 and 16 offered every summer during two weeks;
The campus includes a series of training and divulgation activities aimed at CSE girls and supported by university female students who act as mentors.
The campus also counts on the participation of young female engineers who are already working in technological companies, who can share their own career path and work experiences.
Young female mentors can apply for internships in some of the companies collaborating with the initiative.
Séphora Berrebi Scholarships for Women in Computer Sciences
Submitted by Séphora Berrebi Foundation, France, 2021
Initiatives taken:
Annual Award given to young female researchers, postgraduates or post-doctoral students in Computer Science enrolled in a French or Israeli doctoral school or research laboratory/institute.
Beyond the selection of the winners by a prestigious jury and a 2000€ grant to incentivize female students to pursue their work at the best levels whatever the obstacles are, the objective of the Award is to put light on role models associated with excellence.
Submitted by School of Engineering of the University of Valencia, Spain, 2021
Initiatives taken:
The project targeting students from 6 to 18, as well as their environment (family, teachers/professors) builds on the interaction between female STEM experts and the participating students.
Sessions for the pre-university students and their families (‘Girls4STEM Family’) who are sharing their knowledge about the STEM area in a leisure environment.
Sessions (‘Girls4STEM Professional’) targeting an adult audience, mainly professionals and teachers where STEM experts give a talk with the aim of including the gender perspective into the research and professional environments, rising awareness of the gender gap.
Submitted by the Department of Engineering ‘Enzo Ferrari’ of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy, 2021, 2018
Initiatives taken:
“Ragazze Digitali” is a free summer camp for girls of the third and forth high school grades organized in collaboration with the association of European Women Management and Development;
During the camp, girls are engaged in laboratory activities based on a learning-by-doing and project-based approach (e.g. video-games development in Python, program Arduino robots);
The camp programme also offers seminars and talks of experts and entrepreneurs from local ICT companies promoting existing female role models.
Enrolment and retention of female students and members of Computer Science Department
Submitted by the Department of Computer Science of the Babeș-Bolyai University (UBB), Romania, 2018
Initiatives taken:
Events for high school students to encourage them to pursue a career in Computer Science (contests, lectures, non-formal education weeks);
Awards and fellowships to motivate students to continue their studies in CS Master's and PhD programmes;
Strategies to retain Master and PhD female students (support for return to work after the maternity leave, flexible teaching timetable, team building activities, supporting females to gain managerial and get leadership positions, etc.)
Attracting female students to Bachelor's Programme in Software Development
Submitted by the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark, 2018
Initiatives taken:
IT camp for female high school students;
Offering high school students an opportunity to become a 'University student for a day';
Participation in educational fairs at high schools;
Providing learning support for first year students (introductory courses before the start of the studies, learning and experience exchange meetings between first year and older students, etc.)
Submitted by Radboud Women of Computing Science, Institute for Computing and Information Sciences of the Radboud University, the Netherlands, 2018
Initiatives taken:
Outreach programme offering introductory classes to different fields of CS to high school students aged 12-18;
Organizing the CS programme at the country-wide Girls Day and teaching Robotics module in the Dutch high school course NLT (Nature, Life and Technology);
Formal and informal meetings, lunch lectures and workshops for networking and building awareness;
Travel fellowship to female students or staff for Ada Lovelace Festival, a conference intended for connecting women in computing and technology.
Women in Music Information Retrieval (WiMIR) initiative
Submitted by the Department of Information and Computing Sciences of the Utrecht University, the Netherlands, 2018
Initiatives taken:
Mentoring programme for female students, postdocs, early-stage researchers, industry employees, and faculty in the field of Music Information Retrieval;
Travel grants to attend the yearly ISMIR conference and meet mentors;
WiMIR workshop including a poster session, networking lunch and small-group prototyping sessions mentored by senior women and allies in the WiMIR community.
Submitted by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of the University of West Bohemia, Czech Republic, 2018
Initiatives taken: Summer week of CS for female students of grammar and technical high schools, consisting of:
Lectures and practical workshops on a wide range of technical topics from programming in general to more specific topics such as AI, digital photography, computer networks, etc.;
Excursions (e.g. visit to the Techmania science centre);
Panel discussion with female CS professionals and current female CS students of the university on gender-related topics.
The International Women´s Degree Programme in Computer Science - Hochschule Bremen (2024 Winner)
Submitted by the Hochschule Bremen – City University of Applied Sciences, Germany, 2024
Initiatives taken: The International Women´s Degree Program in Computer Science (IFI) at Hochschule Bremen, University of Applied Sciences, Germany, has been working for nearly 25 years on the recruitment and successful retainment of young women in a single-sex bachelor´s study program in computer science. Since 2016 the study program has been complemented by a dual study offer. The program emphasizes an interactive teaching approach and offers best individual support by professors, tutors and IT experts from companies.
“Alice & Eve: a celebration of women in computing” initiative - Joint effort among several Dutch universities (2024 Runner-up)
Submitted by the Steering Committee of “Alice & Eve: a celebration of women in computing” initiative, the Netherlands, 2024
Initiatives taken: Alice & Eve is the Dutch initiative that tackles the gender disparity problem in Computer Science in the Netherlands. The ambitious goal of Alice & Eve is to change this by celebrating the achievements of women in computing, from Ada Lovelace to upcoming stars, such as Felienne Hermans. Since 2020, through various activities, Alice & Eve presents inspiring women in computing to the public, students, and professionals:
through yearly physical Alice & Eve events (symposium, poster competition),
The Women in Information and Computing Sciences (WICS) network and the ICS diversity committee - Utrecht University (2024 Runner-up)
Submitted by Department of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University, the Netherlands, 2024
Initiatives taken: The department initiated informal lunches for female staff members in 2017, and founded the Women in Information and Computing Sciences (WICS) network, fostering activities to increase career opportunities for women in informatics. WICS successfully received funding for various activities, including an outreach program where women are role models, and won the university-wide diversity award in 2020. WICS helped founding of the departmental diversity committee, which broadens the aspects of diversity, including, ethnicity, sexuality, gender identities, and neurodiversity.
Gender-equality and anti-harassment committee - LIS (Computer Science Lab) Aix Marseille University (2023 Winner)
Submitted by the LIS research lab in Computer Science of Aix Marseille University, France, 2023
Initiatives taken: The gender-equality and anti-harassment committee was created in 2018. In order to raise awareness on the gender stereotypes, to prevent harassment and accompany victims, to boost career of women and to encourage high-school girls to consider science among their possible higher education and career choices, the committee carries out different types of actions grouped into 5 themes:
The equality observatory, performing qualitative and quantitative gendered analyses.
Actions to encourage young girls to pursue scientific careers.
Awareness on gender discrimination through communication and training.
Listening and support for victims of discrimination via the creation of a specific unit within the committee.
Research work on gender stereotypes and discrimination, and participation in international research initiatives for gender equality.
FemTech.dk research program – Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen (2023 Winner)
Submitted by the FemTech.dk research program - University of Copenhagen, Denmark, 2023
Initiatives taken: The FemTech.dk action research program was initiated in 2016 at the University of Copenhagen to increase gender diversity and equity within the Department of Computer Science for both students and faculty. FemTech is fundamentally about combining research and interventions with a focus on making long-term change. The program follows two main interlinked paths: (1) unpacking and understanding the challenges related to unbalanced gender representation in computer science, and (2) intervening and extending the field of computer science to allow for multiple, diverse agendas. The main actions are;
The creation of FemTech workshops, organized as interventionist activities with the creation of Cyberbear (a hacked IKEA soft toy transformed into an IOT artefact). The intention is to produce an alternative narrative depicting computer science as reaching beyond the computer screen.
The creation of AtariWomen artefacts (re-mixed PACMAN game, cosplay costumes, vintage Atari games with 3D printed frames created by women), allows the re-writing of the history of Computer-Science to make women’s achievements more visible.
A third digital artefact (a norm-critical, story-telling game) was created to challenge organization and systemic barriers within computer science departments.
GENIE: GEnder INitiative for Excellence, Informatics – Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Chalmers | Gothenburg University
Submitted by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology | Gothenburg University, Sweden, 2024
Initiatives taken: The GEnder INitiative for Excellence (Genie) is a Foundation initiative that started in 2019. The overall goals set at the start were to reach at least 40% females among full professors and at levels below, remove structural and cultural barriers that hamper women’s careers, and create systems and processes that are fair. As part of this initiative, the Computer Science and Engineering Department committed to:
improving and supporting academic hiring,
providing targeted support for visiting researchers,
offering inclusive leadership education,
analyzing the yearly employee work environment survey according to gender and academic seniority to better understand specific needs,
contributing to the EUGAIN project and promoting the recommended actions across the department,
Women+ in IC – Informatics and Communication (IC) Faculty, EPFL
Submitted by the Women+ in IC committee, Informatics and Communication Faculty, EPFL, Switzerland, 2024
Initiatives taken: Women+ in IC is an association founded in 2022 aiming at promoting the representation of women, non-binary and agender peers (denoted women+) within the informatics and communication (IC) faculty of EPFL. It done through a wide range of events (such as monthly lunchtime seminars, sign and skill-based workshops, exhibitions celebrating the impact of women+’s research, speed-chatting events pairing up senior members of the faculty with junior ones, etc.) which:
promote the research of women+ in IC;
foster solidarity, help women+ network across all academic bodies (students, PhDs, staff members, professors), and encourage the entire faculty to take part in (inter)national feminist initiatives;
offer a dedicated space for women+ to safely and freely express themselves, helping them grow both academically and personally.
RockStartIT project – Department for Interdisciplinary Didactics & Department for Informatics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Submitted by the Department for Interdisciplinary Didactics & Department for Informatics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany, 2024
Initiatives taken: Since its establishment in 2018, the RockStartIT initiative focuses on increasing the representation of girls in computer science (CS). Through the initiative, innovative and engaging online interdisciplinary courses are offered that connect CS with students’ individual interests and passions, providing a platform for problem-solving within their chosen areas. The courses are designed using the IDEA (Interdisciplinary, Diverse, Exploratory, Active) concept explained below:
All courses are interdisciplinary, connecting topics from different domains to provide students with authentic and meaningful learning contexts.
By incorporating a variety of didactic principles, the courses provide a tailored learning experience that caters to the unique needs and preferences of each student.
The exploratory nature of the courses empowers students to embrace curiosity, take intellectual risks, and delve into uncharted territories to look for innovative solutions.
By fostering active learning in our courses students are empowered to actively apply their knowledge and skills, cultivate critical thinking abilities, and develop practical expertise in their chosen fields.
F+Cube Future Female+ Faculty Mentorship Program - TU Delft
Submitted by the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, TU Delft, the Netherlands, 2024
Initiatives taken: F+Cube is a Future Female+ Faculty mentorship program that matches senior PhD students and postdocs from under-represented groups in STEM internationally with faculty members at TU Delft. Mentors guide the mentees in preparing their academic portfolio and navigating academic job market. The F+Cube program rests on three pillars:
Workshops on Women & Engineering - Faculty of Computer Science, UNED
Submitted by the Faculty of Computer Science, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Spain, 2024
Initiatives taken: In 2022/23 the Faculty of Computer Science of the UNED began to develop a series of workshops in the context of Women and Engineering to encourage STEM vocations. The activities have been held in five different cities around the country hosted by the university's partner centers in Albacete, Calatayud, Madrid, Ponferrada and Valencia. The general objectives of the workshops were to:
motivate and tray to grow interest in women and teenagers over STEM vocations, with special emphasis on the different branches of Engineering,
disseminate and highlight the professional careers of relevant women engineers in the geographic areas of the selected Autonomous Regions,
highlight the potentiality of some productive sector in each Spanish region,
commit to the achievement of the 17 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations.
INSPIRA mentoring program - Department of Informatics Engineering, University of Coimbra
Submitted by the Department of Informatics Engineering, University of Coimbra, Portugal, 2024
Initiatives taken: INSPIRA is an individual and group mentoring program launched in April 2022 with the overarching goal to attract, support, and retain female talent, from students to researchers, and academics, in Informatics. It aims to:
mentor female students, researchers, and professors in Informatics,
foster an academic environment that includes everyone,
create a space for sharing experiences, acquiring skills, and connecting with mentors and peers.
INSPIRA organizes different types of events and activities such as public events (roundtables, talks, panel discussions, and workshops) open to everyone, general meetings, mentees’ and mentors’ meetings.
The Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Natural Language Processing (NLP) - University of Edinburgh, UK
Submitted by the Centre for Doctoral Training in Natural Language Processing, University of Edinburgh, UK, 2024
Initiatives taken: The Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a doctoral training programme for over 60 PhD students at the University of Edinburgh. The programme has successfully taken a range of measures to improve the recruitment and retention of female students, such as:
inclusive and targeted advertising,
open days and recruitment ambassadors,
mandatory unconscious bias training,
regular meetings with the management team, including the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (ED&I) Champion,
cohort induction of new PhD students,
student-organised pride picnics, ED&I bookclub, reading group, student-led CDT conference, etc.
Hack4Her: Hackathon for Female Students in the Netherlands – Department of Computer Science, Vrije University Amsterdam
Submitted by the Department of Computer Science, Vrije University Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2024
Initiatives taken: Too many female students drop out of computer science disciplines early-on in the Netherlands, which has a propagating negative effect on the proportion of women in academic positions and modern paths to wealth such as pursuing high-tech careers in computer science. Hack4Her is the the only female-focused student hackathon in the Netherlands in the past 5 years and was created to;
Retain female students in Computer Science careers;
Provide a safe space for women to showcase their technical problem-solving skills;
Submitted by the Women in Cryptography (WinC) Community, 2024
Initiatives taken: Women in Cryptography (WinC) is an initiative founded in 2022 to provide a space for those who identify as women in the cryptography community. Its goals are to promote diversity, integrate more women into the community, provide a safe and inclusive space for discussion and growth, offer mentorship and role models, as well as actively participating in the organization of our research community. The Discord server with more than 200 members serves as a main platform for communication and organization (including sharing job offers and promotion of other diversity-related events). Within the initiative, several in-person and online events (such as seminar and coffee-break series, workshops and meet-ups) have been organized and received positive feedback from the community.
Innochange: Promoting Gender Equality and Equity – Faculty of Informatics, Eötvös Loránd University
Submitted by the Faculty of Informatics, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary, 2023
Initiatives taken: As part of the challenge is to align with EU gender equality strategy, the project "Innochange" developed a self-paced course for students, academic and non-academic staff to better understand the notions and policies of such a plan and ultimately act accordingly to support the integration of gender dimension into education and research in informatics and other STEM fields. The course consists of 9 chapters and aims to raise awareness of global issues and local specificities and their implications from a broader perspective.
We, Gen Z Girls in IT – International University of Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina
Submitted by the Faculty of Computer Sciences and Engineering, International University of Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, 2023
Initiatives taken: The "We, GEN Z Girls in IT" initiative aims to empower students and improve the environment for women in computing in Bosnia and Herzegovina by organizing various events such as workshops, panel discussions, inspirational talks, and lectures. It has three main categories of the actions supporting the aim of this initiative:
Introducing and promoting the STEM and ICT topics via workshops, seminars and events includes the role models from the field.
Encouraging the existing (bachelor, master) students to be organizers and designers of the workshops for younger generation.
Focusing on the professional development of the team to gain insights on how to implement diversity, equity, and inclusion in the academic environment.
IDUN Project: From PhD to Profess or (and Beyond!) – Faculty of Information Technology and Electronic Engineering, Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU)
Submitted by the Faculty of Information Technology and Electronic Engineering, NTNU, Norway, 2023
Initiatives taken: The IDUN Project was started in 2019 and focused on supporting women in leadership in Informatics and related subjects. This was done by improving the recruitment of women to all levels from Ph.D to professor, helping to limit the dropout of women, and increasing the number of female scientists involved in international research projects.
Creation of a local mentoring program for women at master level to associate professor level.
Formalization and development of existing networks allowed the project to contribute to international mentoring schemes between women in scientific positions at different levels.
Founding of ACM Women Trondheim in 2020 to create an umbrella for specialisation clusters to allow expanded networking and increased visibility of gender balance initiatives.
Women in CS@TUM: Female Students Support, Encouragement and Retention Initiatives – Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich (TUM)
Submitted by the School of Computation, Information and Technology, TUM, Germany, 2023
Initiatives taken: Women in CS@TUM is a group of members from the department of Informatics at TUM, working towards equal participation and the support of women and of other underrepresented groups in the department. It is a community that is mainly driven and shaped by female students who are dedicated to improving the conditions for all the female students. Activities included:
Events such as workshops, speaker sessions, mentoring events and other community-building activites are a great opportunity to encourage female students to be inspired, motivated and empowered.
Scholarships and Travel Grants Program, giving opportunities to female students to attend the world’s most prominent conferences that bring career interests and the prospects of women in computing to the forefront.
Kinderzimmer, providing childcare facilities in the faculty building for short limited periods in addition to the regular childcare services provided by the university.
Unconscious Bias Training in the form of a workshop for tutors and teaching assistants.
Mining the Unconscious Bias at TUM, project to collect data on these problems for the Informatics Department.
In Honour of Rae Harbird – Department of Computer Science, University College London
Submitted by the Department of Computer Science, University College London, UK, 2023
Initiatives taken: In Honour of Rae Harbird (26th March 1963 – 9th June 2023), Lecturer (Teaching) in the Department of Computer Science, UCL, UK, who died after an 18-month battle with ovarian cancer. Rae Harbird was fully aware that women are vastly under-represented in engineering sciences and worked to rectify this situation by inspiring more women and girls into Computer Science through outreach activities nationally and internationally. Activities included:
Bioinspired Robotics Activities with UK secondary schools started in 2019 including Summer School, Hackathon, 1 day events and on site talks in Secondary Schools with children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Supporting Teachers who teach computing in UK secondary schools with teacher training and focus groups.
Supporting Outreach Activities Internationally, started in 2017 and reaching Norway, Japan, Kazakhstan, St. Lucia and Gibraltar.
Promoting Computer Science among young women – Heudiasyc lab & Computer Science Department, University of Technology Compiegne (UTC) & CNRS
Submitted by the Computer Science Department UTC and Heudiasyc lab UTC & CNRS, France, 2023
Initiatives taken: The promotion campaign started in 2022 and covers different types of activities:
The “Equality Month” dedicated to raising awareness among administrative and teaching staff, as well as female and male students, about gender equality, organized in March 2023. This project aims to raise awareness within the community about gender equality and promote diversity in higher education.
The 2nd edition of FAI "Women Future in Computer Science" competition at UTC, which aims to inspire interest in computer science and technology and attract more young women to the computer science program at UTC.
"PIXELS" a Summer School in Computer Science, organized from June 26th to June 29th at UTC, aimed at 20 high school students from the Hauts-de-France region, including 8 girls and 12 boys.
Foundation of the Women In Computing Sciences (WICS) network and ICS Diversity Committee – Department of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University
Submitted by the WICS network, Department of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University, the Netherlands, 2023
Initiatives taken: The network was found in 2018. The aim was to establish and maintain a network between junior and senior members of the department, to initiate activities to increase career opportunities for women, and to raise awareness on issues faced by women. This was done through various actions:
Regular monthly lunch meetings;
Creation of an outreach program where women are active as role models working to change gender-stereotypic attitudes towards technical subjects;
Project to retain young female talent in academia;
Series of small events for academic staff members (all levels) to discuss diversity-related topics;
Creation of the ICS department diversity committee.
Gender equality at the Computer Science Department, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, West University of Timisoara
Submitted by the Computer Science Department, West University of Timisoara, Romania, 2023
Initiatives taken: West University of Timisoara adopted a Gender Equality Plan for the whole of the university. The target is to promote more inclusive perspectives among employees, emphasizing the importance and benefits respecting the principles of gender equality. The Computer Science Department drew up a 4 step action plan to implement this;
