Encouragement to advance - supporting women in European science careers

Career outcomes of female and male scientists show a severe dichotomy. Throughout European science and research decision-making positions women scientists are under-represented. Thus, the European Commission Science-and-Society action plan’s main concern was with career support for individual women scientists during the 6th Research Framework Programme. This edition of cews. Beiträge gathers reports, assessments and gives best practice recom-mendations generated by five European projects that were implemented to advance gender equality in academia at different levels, but for a common purpose: helping to fix the ‘leaky pipeline’. Maren Jochimsen and Brigitte Mühlenbruch highlight the importance of an encompassing scientific culture and summarize some requirements for a gender-balanced European Research Area. The Dutch research team of Marieke van den Brink, Margo Brouns and Sietske Waslander report on the results of a national research study on recruitment and selection procedures for professorial appointments in the Netherlands. They examine the factors that may influence women’s chances in appointment procedures and discuss success rates of male and female applicants with respect to different academic disciplines. Anke Lipinsky and Silke Tölle offer some insight into the genesis, objectives and realization of the project “Encouragement to Advance – Training Seminars for Women Scientists” (ENCOUWOMSCI) which is the focal point of this volume. Margarete Hubrath introduces the concept of the training seminars carried out during “Encouragement to Advance”. Seminars were designed to improve the starting conditions for highly qualified female scientists in connection with applications for professorships. Anke Lipinsky presents evaluation results relating to quantitative data produced during the runtime of “Encour-agement to Advance,” whereas Silke Tölle discusses results that emerged from qualitative interviews of the project’s evaluation. Liisa Husu, Karin Siebenhandl et. al. review the outcome of the project “Advanced Training for Women in Scientific Research” (AD-VANCE) which combined mentoring and coaching activities. Helene Füger discusses future perspectives for mentoring in Europe, starting with observations on the experi-ences and achievements of “eument-net - Building a European Network of Academic Mentoring Programmes for Women Scientists” (EUMENT-NET). André Béraud focuses on women’s careers in the field of technological higher education. He elaborates on experi-ences and results of “Empowering Women Engineers Careers in Industrial and Academic Research” (PROMETEA), which combined quantitative and qualitative data to study the situation of women researchers in science, engineering and technology. In conclusion, Pauleen Colligan and Maren Jochimsen report on the establishment of the European Plat-form of Women Scientists (EPWS), and illustrate the platform’s activities and goals as a new strategic instrument in European research policy.