Women’s conference supports Gender Action Plan

The Joint High-level Conference ‘Women in Science, Innovation and Technology in the Digital Age’ organized by the European Commission and Media and the Hungarian EU Presidency was held in Budapest in March 2011.

A declaration issued by the conference states that 261 participants from 26 countries representing key public, private actors, academia and NGOs from Europe, as well as the European Commission, ILO, UNESCO, UNECE and the World Bank agree that getting more women into science, innovation and technology is not just an issue of social justice, but an economic necessity, a key tool for economic growth and competitiveness.

The participants of the conference aspire to a vision whereby European governments, businesses, academia and NGOs align in multi-stakeholder platforms to actively support girls' and women's participation in the on-going great transformation and strategic paradigm-shift of the Digital Age.

Their shared objectives by 2020 are that girls and women are empowered active participants of the knowledge economy in the areas of education, research and innovation, entrepreneurship, workforce, leadership and the media.

The conference participants recommend to the European Parliament and the European Commission and all European stakeholders to support the adoption of a Gender Action Plan for the Digital Agenda to secure that women can on equal terms join the Movement for Digital Action and contribute to implementing the Digital Agenda and the Europe 2020 Strategy.

They invite key actors in politics and industries interested in measurably and significantly increasing the number of girls and women in science, innovation and technology to support

- actionable and sustainable projects and practices that advance, strengthen and promote technical and scientific talents and skills;

- flexible academic structures and pathways for new gender relations and scientific careers;

- education as a key instrument of getting more girls in STEM and closing the digital gap via curricular reforms in schools and teachers'training and supporting early acquisition of Digital Literacy, coaching of teachers and employees of STEM, and implementing better functioning systems for parents' information;

- set targets for EU Member States on female entrepreneurship including membership on executive and advisory boards, to enforce gender specific awareness for example in technology incubators, in public and private financing institutions;

- engagement in careers in STEM through mentorship, internship, recruitment, transparency in career opportunities;

- integration of gender in research and innovation processes, increasing thereby the potential for creativity, new research content and user centered design;

- creation of positive images through role models, awareness campaigns, media presence like TV program series, comics, video games and a joint 'WomenTech Pavillon' at World Expo 2015;

- European level benchmarking, monitoring and reporting through an annual 'European Gender in Science, Innovation and Technology Scorecard';

- global collaboration projects between EU, Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin-America to support women's entrepreneurship in the Digital Age.