A report by Gender in Science, Innovation, Technology and Engineering (GenderINSITE) on successes, challenges and the connection between individuals and institutions in STEM. Delivered by Phyllis Kalele at the Global Forum on Women in Scientific Research (GoFoWiSeR), Dakar, Senegal 2019

1. Gender Dimension of Global
Scientific Leadership
Global Forum on Women in Scientific Research (GoFoWiSeR)
Dakar, 19 July 2019

2. About GenderInSITE
• Gender in science, innovation, technology and engineering (SITE)
is an international initiative to promote the role of women in SITE
• GenderInSITE is a programme unit of UNESCO

3. About GenderInSITE
• Aims to demonstrate how applying a gender lens to SITE can
provide deeper insights, more effective programmes and more
sustainable outcomes in the context of development.
• Applying a ‘gender lens’ is the act of acknowledging and making explicit the
ways in which gender affects (and is affected by) issues, processes,
institutions etc., and then using this understanding to improve policies,
research and outcomes for women, men and others (UNCTAD 2011).

4. Pathways to Success
http://research.assaf.org.za/bitstream/h
andle/20.500.11911/113/2018_genderin
site_pathway_success.pdf?sequence=1&
isAllowed=y
GenderInSITE formally
launched its report on
“Pathways to Success: Bringing
a Gender Lens to the Scientific
Leadership of Global
Challenges” at the UNESCO
headquarters in Paris on 11
March 2019

5. “Each step up the ladder of the scientific
research system sees a drop in female
participation until, at the highest echelons of
scientific research and decision-making,
there are few women left.”
(Huyer, 2015)
“Women do not advance to the highest
leadership positions in the same numbers,
at the same rate, or through the same paths
as male colleagues”
(Dugan et al., 2013)
• We know that there is a
problem
• We know less about
successes than challenges
• Increasingly complex and
globalised challenges require
integrated, global responses
and diverse leadership
Report Rationale

6. Pathways to Success
This report brings a different perspective:
• Recognises the vast amount of work that has already been done
• Looks at levels not usually looked at
• Looks at the difficulty of institutionalising policies
• Has an awareness of politics and power relations
• Highlights how the institutional and individual are intertwined

7. Framework
• ‘Pathways’ approach recognises that:
• men and women do not experience or advance in scientific
careers in the same way
• scientific ‘systems’ and conventional understandings of
leadership are not gender neutral - oriented to accommodate
men and their traditional roles and expectations
• dominant narratives about scientific leadership preclude
women’s needs and roles

8. Six key themes:
• Commitment to addressing a problem
• Refusing to give up in spite of disbelief and pressure
• Mentoring and role modelling
• Developing skills to exercise leadership
• Leveraging and building networks
• Reshaping organisational cultures
Personal Pathways to Success: Individual
Women Scientists

9. Who and what have been the primary change agents and driving
forces behind these developments?
1. Detail and link the many initiatives and opportunities to redirect
current training and leadership initiatives to enhance women’s
positions in international science
2. Target young scientists with initiatives that build their success
Recommendations

10. Where have progressive policies and practices on gender in science
emerged and where have they stalled?
3. Collate gender-related evidence to inform international science and
policy
4. Ensure that gender policies exist at all levels of international science
5. Constantly advocate for, and support through resources, gender
equality in science
Recommendations

11. What are the relationships between policy and behaviour change,
and individual women scientists pathways to leadership?
6. Design gender policies for international science (not individuals or
organisations)
7. Ensure that organisational policy highlights gender, identifies
opportunities, builds awareness, recognises power relations,
implements policies and builds cross-institutional global
commitments to enhance gender in international science
Recommendations

12. Ultimately

13. Thank you