Success of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science

The organisation of this Day is implemented by the UNESCO and UNO-Women, in collaboration with institutions and partners from civil society who want to put women and girls on the front scene. As the UNESCO points out, gender equality is an overall priority of the international organisation, and most of all, “supporting to young girls, their training and their full aptitude to express their ideas are levers of development and peace”.

A critical role in scientific and technologic communities

After reminding that this initiative is part of the objectives of the Sustainable Development programme for 2030, from health improvement to the fight against climate change, the UNESCO thinks that its success “will depend on the mobilisation of all talents”. It is thus necessary, says the organisation, that more women join these sectors, because “a diverse research broaden the pool of talented researchers, bringing in new views, talent and creativity”. This Day reminds that “women and girls play a critical role in scientific and technologic communities, and their participation must be improved”.

To achieve this objective, the French ministry in charge of research has chosen this symbolic date of 11 February to officially award the Irène Joliot-Curie prizes in favour of the promotion of women in science, research and innovation. Every year, these prizes reward exemplary careers in public and private research to highlight the “career of women scientists who join excellence and energy”. In 2023, four women received prizes, including a young mathematician, Nina Hadis Amini, Young Female Scientist laureate of the year, an international researcher of Iranian origin who completed part of her studies in France.

Dreaming big

“I dream big too!” This is the motto of the Elles Bougent association, which launched a communication operation on 11 February to celebrate all women in science and “inspire girls to live their dreams”, and invite them to “dream big” and “explore their passion for science”. Indeed, the goal of the Elles Bougent association is to present the jobs of engineer and technician to women and girls. The association includes more than 8,000 sponsors, 1,600 representative places and 300 partners fighting stereotypes limiting the projects of girls and women. In concrete terms, Elles Bougent offers “equal opportunities to girls and women so they can deploy their full scientific, mathematic, technical and technological potential”. An initiative all the more important since, according to a survey by the association published on 11 February, a large majority of participants to the survey did not achieve their dreams.

And regarding Femmes Ingénieuses, the association has produced and directed a short film in collaboration with the ministry in charge of research, in which students in science share their experience, and especially two girls, Éloïse and Roxane, students at the ISEP (Institut supérieur d'électronique de Paris). For several years, says the association, they prepare to become engineers, they are passionate about their training, and that’s why “it was important for them to share their experience to inspire future generations of students in sciences”.

Presence of this Day in French institutions

In addition to these ministerial or associative initiatives, many institutions followed with their own, on the field and everywhere in France. Here are a few actions:

• The University of Paris-Saclay celebrated the International Day of Women and Girls in Science inviting over two days classes from schools and high schools to raise the awareness of girls, but also boys, to the occupations of research and “show the place of women in the scientific and technological society”. Pupils could attend workshops in physics, chemistry, biology and attend a workshop in science for engineers:
• The University of Nîmes also organised a day of exchange between researchers and students from high schools to “inspire scientific careers and show their accessibility thanks to school efforts”, among others to fight “self-censorship of girls regarding sciences and technologies”;
•  The University of La Réunion used this Day to promote a scholarship it had implemented for women students in scientific study courses, and allowed a dozen students join an internship or register in a university year abroad;
• The University of Bordeaux has put in place a webinar, “Women in Science”, to present “strategies to use to build a career in research”;
• The University of Paris Dauphine - PSL chose to put the spotlights on six scientist women from research centres of the institutions who were remarked that year;
• The Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon organised the event Journée Sciences, un métier de femmes ! (Science Day, a woman’s job!) in collaboration with the University of Lyon to “show by examples that all scientific occupations are gender-equal, read between the lines of stereotypes and overcome popular beliefs” by welcoming hundreds of girls from high schools.

Key figures

According to the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research:

• in 2020, 55% of students were women;
• they represented only 41% of students in scientific study courses;
• in details, 63% of students in life science are women, but they are only 31% in fundamental sciences;
• 28% of graduates in engineering were women in 2020. They were 22% in 2000.