The Polish Young Academy PAS (AMU PAN), is organising a conference to draw attention to the problem of gender inequality in science. The event will take place on 10 February in Poznań in partnership with the NCN.
In recent years, AMU PAN has consistently campaigned for women in science, organising a series of meetings entitled “Become a Researcher”. It has also run a long-term programme known as “Scientific Excellence Has No Gender”, which aims to raise awareness within the community of the existing disparities between men and women in science and calls for an effort to close the gap.
The programme will be launched on 10 February, starting with a conference held at the Faculty of Political Science and Journalism of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, with the participation of Prof. Teresa Zielińska, member of the NCN Council in 2018-2022, and Prof. Zbigniew Błocki, NCN Director. The conference will present Polish reports on the situation of men and women in science, including a paper prepared last year by the NCN’s Analysis and Evaluation Team and the Committee of Research Activity Analysis at the NCN Council. The agenda will also include presentations of Gender Equality Plans drawn up by different research centres and examples of Polish and European promotional campaigns aimed at levelling the playing field for men and women in science, as well as a debate on the situation of both genders.
Alongside the NCN, the conference is also organised in partnership with the Centre of Research on Women’s Participation in Public Space from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and the Polish Science Contact Agency of the Polish Academy of Sciences (“PolSCA”) in Brussels.
Detailed agenda and registration:
The NCN has prioritised equal access to research funding for men and women for years. In 2019, we published a position paper on the issue.
Following the example of the European Research Council, we have developed solutions to make it easier for female researchers to reconcile their work and family life. We have extended the deadlines used in research record assessment and prolonged the eligibility periods for application for our young researcher grants and postdoctoral positions by 1.5 year per child for all mothers.
In recent months:
– we have published the results of a poll focused on the situation of men and women in science,
we have passed a new NCN Gender Equality Plan 2022-2025, which includes a diagnosis of the status quo and outlines further measures the NCN intends to take to support gender equality,
– The NCN Council has prepared changes to the terms and conditions of the NCN Award to account for the different career trajectories of men and women (the document is pending approval by the Ministry of Education and Science).