The numbers say it all: on average, women are more educated than men globally, and now participate more fully in professional and technical occupations than they did 10 years ago. Consistent with the increased representation of women among STEM degree recipients, women’s representation in the STEM workforce has also improved significantly in recent decades. However they are still underrepresented in many STEM professions and their chances to rise to positions of leadership are only 28% of those of men.
At a glance we can spot two basic problems: girls and women tend not to study some STEM subjects such as computer sciences, physics and engineering. When they do, there seems to be a glass ceiling presenting them from accessing senior roles. Data from the world economic forum show that the chances of women rising to positions of leadership are only 28% of those of men.
Persisting gender segregation across study fields is the result of a mix of social, cultural, economic and educational institutional factors. The literature highlights the role of gender socialization of boys and girls to explain their uneven distribution across study fields. Family and especially parents play a key role as they often bring up their children to conform to traditional gender roles, while the education system, teachers and peers, tend to reinforce these stereotypes, giving support to gendered choices with regard to studies and career prospects.
To help address gender unbalance in STEM careers, the Hypatia project makes available a selection of resources that can be shared and adapted.
TWIST (Towards Women in Science and Technology) was a FP7 funded project that ran from 2010 to 2012. It raised awareness about the role and representation of women in science through programmes and activities in science centres and museums. The TWIST project focused on the stereotypes and biases on societal roles of men and women and…
Produced my the University of Copenhagen, Department of Science Education, this document brings questions, criteria and focus points to help you run Science Education activities in your Science Centre or Museum.
Produced my the University of Copenhagen, Department of Science Education, this document brings questions, criteria and focus points to help you run Science Education activities in your Science Centre or Museum.
Produced my the University of Copenhagen, Department of Science Education, this document brings questions, criteria and focus points to help you run Science Education activities in your Research & Industry organisation.
Hypatia’s toolkit is an accessible, practical and ready-to-use digital collection of innovative activities aimed at teenagers. The collection contains workshops, speed dating, card games, debate scenarios and plays drawn from good practices across Europe. Each activity, called module, has a central focus on gender-inclusive ways of communicating STEM, empowering teenagers and exploring the range of…
One of the main goals of the Hypatia project is to establish national Hubs in each of the museum partners of the project. These hubs consist of a panel of schools (science teachers but also head teachers), informal educational institutions, local, regional and national authorities, academic research institutes and industries, gender experts, parents, but above…
This current document reports the main activities undertaken by the project in its first year from August 2015 to July 2016. For the period August 2015- April 2016 partners were asked and have delivered their input for the preparation of an Internal report that gave information both on their content contribution and their financial spending…
This document details the Quality Assurance Plan (QAP) for the Hypatia project. It defines the working procedures, processes and best practice guidelines in order to ensure quality standards of the project outcomes. Its main aims are: Managing the interaction between the beneficiaries during the work execution; Detailing how and when the project documentation has to…
In the coming years, with Europe’s knowledge economy developing and new technologies on the rise, skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) will be needed for a broader range of careers than ever before. It is therefore imperative to attract and recruit more youth to STEM study programmes; not just to increase the numbers…
The present report concerns a number of gender-inclusive science education activities designed by European science centres, museums, research institutions, industrial institutions, and other science education institutions. The 49 science education activities were reported by institutions from 14 European countries, all Partners or Third Parties in the project Hypatia. The report begins by briefly introducing the…
The present document constitutes a specific mapping of how gender is addressed in the current STEM curricula in 14 EU countries. It is based on the analysis of the official 9th grade curricula for physics and biology for the 14 countries, and informed by official guidelines for teachers and head teachers as well as EU…
Within this document we present the project’s strategy on how stakeholders are to be engaged in each country, providing clear guidelines to Hypatia’s hubs on how to develop and best make use of their local hubs, using input from the European Advisory Board on how best to approach and cooperate with partners, taking account of national and cultural differences.…
HYPATIA project is a collaborative project funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, Science with and for Society. HYPATIA aims to bring together, schools, science museums, research institutes and industries, policy makers with gender experts and teenagers themselves, to develop pilots activities and disseminate a unique modular toolkit of activities and guidelines for engaging teenagers…
The present report collects the modules developed by the 5 museum partners (BSMJ, EXPERIMENTARIUM, MUST, NEMO, UNIVERSCIENCE) for the three contexts: museum, school and industry/research. Each module is composed of: 3 guidelines for the activities ( for museum, school and industry/research) 1 guideline about gender inclusion 1 guideline about facilitation The choice of the modules has…
Coordinated by Ecsite and delepoed by Hyperbrown, Hypatia’s website serves a twofold objective: to promote the results of the project and the usability of the Toolkit; and on the other side, to captivate the interest of teenagers, especially girls in STEM. For the first main goal we have developed the website hypatiaproject.eu that contains all the relevant information…
In the outset of Hypatia’s project, Ecsite developed a Sustainability Plan to ensure that the outcomes of the project remain widely used and available to all stakeholders. It has two main goals: to increase the scope of the outcomes and to leverage the benefits of the created partnerships. For this, we base our strategy on a strong…
In this downloadable PDF, Hypatia project presents it’s communication plan and strategy. It outlines the dissemination goals and how it will be reached throughout the life-span of the project and beyond. It may sound a little too specific, but within it you may find some nice ideas for you next project or to use on the…
