Women’s empowerment through sustainability pathways in STEM Higher Education

The project aimed to address the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields across Europe. Women are significantly underrepresented in STEM disciplines. Despite comprising 52% of the European pop...

WESTEM's goal was to increase awareness among HEI staff, teachers, and the student community about the challenges that women face when studying STEM Careers. Long-term impact requires sustainable strategies, including increasing the recruitment and retention of women in STEM Careers and promoting inclusive learning environments that support and encourage female participation in STEM Subjects. This project wanted to set a pathway for better and inclusive opportunities for girls and women in STEM by providing self-assessment tools and materials for HEI staff to increase their readiness in promoting female participation in STEM Careers, as well as fostering inclusive learning environments that could encourage and inspire women's participation in STEM Subjects. Additionally, we wanted to empower young women to step confidently into STEM fields, increasing the visibility of female role models and providing a platform with resources that support and inspire women to enroll and complete STEM field studies.

The project aimed to improve the participation of female students in STEM disciplines. To do so, the project had activities targeting the following audiences: HEI faculty and staff, and female students and professionals, practitioners, and stakeholders. For HEI faculty and staff, the project implemented an online self-assessment tool and an inclusive toolkit with ready-to-use educational scenarios. These tools were designed to increase HEI competence in engaging female students and to provide courses and learning experiences that address gender bias. For female students and professionals, practitioners, and stakeholders, the project developed a dedicated female mentoring program, an online community, monthly webinars, filmed interviews with role models, local workshops, and focus groups for discussion, as well as a final conference. The project also provided material for the role model mentoring program including templates, articles, videos, links to networks, tests, blogs, and publications for information, inspiration, and empowerment to break stereotypes of girls and women in STEM disciplines. To ensure the sustainability, transferability, and impact of the activities, the project released several documents, including a document framework of the self-assessment tool, a mentoring manual, a framework for action to highlight the role of women in STEM, and a cross-country report presenting an overview of the state of the art for gender equality in STEM studies and careers in the partner countries. This report includes information on legal framework, practices, and institutional policies, as well as experiences from the implementation of the project and case studies.

The project delivered three outputs successfully. The first one was an online self-assessment tool for HEI staff, which provides a level of recommendation based on the respondent's input. A short quiz based on the self-assessment tool was also released to encourage reflection on STEM challenges and female stereotypes. Additionally, a framework document was created, describing the rationale and main findings from the literature review on the gender gap in STEM fields, challenges, and barriers, as well as existing evaluation systems and tools available to assess educators' competencies. It also describes the categories that formed the self-assessment tool. The self assessment tool is freely available on the project website. The second output was the Inclusive Instruction toolkit, which consisted of dedicated learning resources for use by HEIs faculty in their daily instruction, one for each of the STEM thematic units: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths. Each unit entailed five stand-alone learning resources fostering inclusion, equity, female participation, and addressing gender misconceptions. This toolkit proposes a set of activities and resources to be undertaken successively and includes all the material required for its use and templates which can be adjusted. Promotional videos were created to facilitate an overall view of the material released. The toolkit is freely accessible on the project website and available in all partner languages. The third output was the WESTEM Portraits – Role Model Academy, which portrays female participation in STEM. This overarching set of resources and actions, includes different activities and materials: an online community established (on the Discord platform) where participants could learn and interact with other women in STEM, faculty, and members interested in the topic. Several webinars and group discussions in STEM Topics using the repository of materials and resources compiled, including templates, articles, links to networks, tests, blogs, and publications for information and inspiration. It also delivered a mentoring programme, including the full mentoring cycle with registration forms, a manual, templates, and materials for mentors and mentees, 13 filmed interviews with role models part of the program, and 1 documentary compiling inspirational quotes and reflections, all part of a section on the website dedicated to empowering female role models. The third output also released two reports: one framework for action to highlight the role of women in STEM, describing this output's strategy, and one cross-country report that presents an overview of gender equality in STEM in national contexts and indicative legal frameworks, practices, and institutional policies (from desk research), as well as experience from implementation as part of the project and case studies. Five national reports, one from each partner country, were developed which informed the cross-country analysis and overview. Other project results included raising the awareness and engagement of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to combat obstacles inhibiting women's participation in STEM careers. HEIs from partner countries showed increased interest in integrating project materials into future terms. The project promoted new approaches in teaching and inclusive STE(A)M courses in Higher Education. The project also developed new synergies between universities, STEM, and female organizations, and civil society actors across partner countries. The project laid the groundwork for systemic changes needed, particularly in countries where promoting HEIs and student participation was more challenging, leading to long-term change in the field of STEM.