International Women's Day 2022 @ CMESS
For International Women's Day on 8 March, we are putting the spotlight on women at CMESS. Just over half of the CMESS staff and researchers are women. The team of technical assistants, who – along with the administration – are central enablers of science because they keep the labs and the research in the labs running, is even clearly female-dominated. We would like to shine the spotlight on the many women who drive excellent research and provide the backbone of science at CMESS.
In doing so, the Centre is participating in a campaign initiated by the Faculty of Earth Sciences, Geography and Astronomy, also involving the Faculty of Chemistry and the Faculty of Life Sciences.
Women in Science deserve particular attention as women are studying in large numbers - at the University of Vienna even more than 60 percent of the students are female. However, the number of women decreases with increasing career level. Career research refers to this as the “leaky pipeline” and the “glass ceiling” which blocks the step to the highest career level. According to an analysis by the University of Vienna from 2021, the life and natural sciences are particularly noticeable here.
Currently about 30 per cent of the Research Groups at CMESS are headed by female researchers. Up to the level of postdocs and senior scientists, women are even slightly overrepresented though. “When the Centre was founded in 2019, women accounted for about 40 per cent of the scientific staff. Since then, we have further increased the share of female scientists in our team. We aim at sustaining this development and want to contribute to making the glass ceiling more permeable for female researchers, not only at the Centre, but in our research fields in general,” says Andreas Richter, Head of CMESS. Therefore, recently a CMESS Women's Career Advancement Initiative started. It aims at interconnecting women in research at CMESS and beyond and at increasing their visibility in the scientific community and the public. Moreover, it aims to make it easier for young families to reconcile work and family life. This way, the initiative focuses its on key points that research on the gender gap in science has identified to be important elements for career advancement.
The University of Vienna is also dedicated to the role and promotion of women in research and at universities with various actions and initiatives. The Human Resources and Gender Equality unit offers various services for the career advancement of female scientists. Since 2022 is the 125th anniversary of the admission of the first female students to the University of Vienna, an exhibition starts on International Women's Day. It can be explored as a walk in the courtyard 1 of the Campus (Spitalgasse 2).
