While gender parity in the scientific community has experienced some improvement over the last several decades, women still constitute a minority in science with 33.3% of the world’s researchers being women in 2018, according to the UNESCO Science Report (UNESCO, 2021). The consensus among the participating countries in the UNESCO STEM and Gender Advancement (SAGA) project is that there is a decreasing proportion of female researchers with increasing advancement to more senior career levels (UNESCO, 2021). Some examples of yet remaining issues, presented in the UNESCO Science Report, are economic inequalities, lower representation of women’s contributions in high-profile journals, lower citation levels of female-authored publications, funding disparities, and tougher standards for women in tenure evaluations, job applications and in the peer-review process (UNESCO, 2021). Women are also less often given plenary and keynote presentation opportunities than men, thus reducing their visibility and recognition of their work (UNESCO, 2021).

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Overcoming the mentioned persistent challenges requires an ongoing open dialogue between all researchers, coupled to dedicated efforts that promote the scientific contributions of female scientists, building strong mentorship networks among female researchers and trainees, and actively counteracting gender bias in science. There is a growing global awareness of the benefits of gender parity, as well as having a diverse workforce, in terms of work efficiency and economic prosperity, and is considered an important element in tackling the imminent future challenges our planet and society face including Climate Change and its social, economic and environmental consequences, global health and future pandemics as well as enabling a positive transformation in the ongoing digital revolution (UNESCO, 2021).

 

The aim of this conference is to enhance the visibility and recognition of the contributions of female scientist in the field of Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) and similar porous hybrid materials, encouraging women to pursue their interests in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and a career in academia by establishing a community of mentorship for young scientists gaining female role models in their own field and promoting women’s sense of belonging in STEM and academia. In addition, we also would like to emphasize the need of raising the awareness for various challenges women scientists face daily in academia, reporting from the broader community of the unsolved issues to the resulting consequences of the gender inequality in our society.

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References

UNESCO (2021) UNESCO Science Report: the Race Against Time for Smarter Development. S. Schneegans, T. Straza and J. Lewis (eds). UNESCO Publishing: Paris.