With this initiative, the European Commission aims to establish the EU as the world’s most attractive destination for women in Research, Innovation and Startups, addressing persisting challenges to gender equality and improving working conditions and career development for women in the EU.
ECTRI welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this process and underlines the following key aspects:
- Europe’s full research potential can only be achieved if structural barriers to gender equality are addressed simultaneously at all levels, across the entire research-innovation-entrepreneurship-funding-governance ecosystems.
- Embed gender equality criteria into critical engineering areas and R&I governance models to correct structural imbalances
- Introduce dedicated financial instruments for women-led high-quality innovation initiatives to facilitate women leadership
- Implement monitoring mechanisms enabling conditions that allow all gender groups to participate with equal opportunities
- Address the significant gender gaps in transport research, and overall, in STEM studies
- Tackle gender-based violence in universities and research organisations
Read ECTRI’s position paper on the EU Call for evidence for the EU Action Plan for Women in Research, Innovation and Startups.
ECTRI thanks the ECTRI Task Force EU Policy for contributing to this consultation.