Background

In Trinity College

The Centre for Women in Science and Engineering Research (WiSER) in Trinity College was launched in November 2006 by then Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment, Mr Micheál Martin TD, through funding from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and Trinity College.

Nationally

A 2005 call from SFI aimed to address the under-representation of women in science, engineering and technology (SET) careers. The SFI Women in Science & Engineering Programme, through which WiSER was established, contained three elements:

Recruit

To recruit more women and girls into SET careers and education

• Presently only 20% of students entering engineering undergraduate programmes are women.

Retain

To enable highly skilled women researchers to remain in SET careers

While 40% of contract researchers in the Faculty of Engineering, Maths & Science in College are women, only 8% of full professors are women*, as of September 2008. Retention measures help to address this imbalance.

• Institute Planning Grants In 2005 the IPGs gave 11 Higher Education Institutes the opportunity to conduct a self-assessment of women’s participation in science and engineering research activities and research management.
• Institute Development Awards WiSER, UCC and UL were all awarded funding for 12-month pilot projects to enhance the participation of women in science and engineering research activities and research management.

Click here to find out more about both of these awards.

Return

To encourage and assist top-level researchers to return to work following a career break

• Research shows that women returning from career breaks may experience lower salaries than they previously held, as well as greater difficulty in securing research funding (Source: Daphne Jackson Trust, Real Returners, 2006)
• PI Career Advancement Awards This award was introduced in 2005 to support outstanding researchers to return to academia. 10 women received PICA Awards, including 3 from TCD. To read about the award winners, click here.

WiSER was established through an Institute Development Award under the Retain section of the SFI programme.

Download a copy of the report WiSER submitted as a result of our Institute Planning Grant (PDF, 380kB)

Click here to see some of the statistics regarding women in SET in TCD

* Source: WiSER Database