FemaleINSPIRES:International Network and Support Platform for Interdisciplinary Research Engineers /Scientistss

The gender imbalance in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields has remained constant for years despite numerous initiatives and increases the further up the STEM career pipeline one looks. This imbalance is universal and ever present to a varied degree. Women regardless of motherhood, are still disproportionately affected by caring and housework responsibilities. Within STEM, where females are already underrepresented, this is simply widening an existing gap. The global COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the careers of women in STEM to a great extent. This project (FemaleINSPIRES) aims to create an online international support platform for female STEM Early Career Researchers (ECR) from the DAC countries. It will strive to provide peer to peer support with focus on Malawi, Ghana, Indonesia, Egypt, Nigeria and Kazakhstan in the first step and then explore expanding this initiative globally. A dedicated website will be the host for the activities and an online survey will collect data on challenges and solutions that famale STEM ECRs face in light of the current pandemic. Online workshops focussing on ECR professional career development and emotional well-being, writing retreats, mentoring, peer review of research proposals and development of collaborations will be outputs of the work.