International Day of Women and Girls in Science

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The fourth International Day of Women and Girls in Science is celebrated on the 11th of February 2019. On this day, declared by the UN and taking place under the auspices of UNESCO, the important role played by women and girls in science is celebrated and their engagement in research is promoted. It is also to promote an equal gender approach and the involvement of women in science in general – women worldwide make up less than 30% of researchers across scientific fields.

The National Contact Centre – Gender and Science, set up under the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, has launched a social networks campaign presenting women and girls who have made a contribution to the development of both Czech and global science last year. Anybody is welcome to join this campaign by sharing an interesting success story and the name of the respective female scientist, using the following hashtags #ZenyVeVede, #WomenInScience.

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Mgr. Barbora Smolková and Mgr. Mariia Uzhytchak from the Optical and Biophysical Systems Department. Both doctoral students at the Institute of Physics have received a prize at the FEBS 2018 Congress. (Photo: Pavlína Jáchimová, Czech Academy of Sciences.)

The Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences (FZU) has joined the celebrations of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science – a total of 166 women have worked across its departments, successfully pursuing their careers – in 2018, for example, 5 women left the “Research and Development Specialist” category for the “Doctoral” category and 7 female scientists moved up to the “Postdoctoral” category.

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Mgr. Věra Latoňová at the Silicon Detector Testing Laboratory at the Department of Detector Development and Data Processing. (Photo: Pavlína Jáchimová, Czech Academy of Sciences.)

A number of the female scientist at the FZU have been successful in the last couple of years – it was dr. Hana Lísalová who received the Otto Wichterle Award and the Lumina Quaeruntur Premium or Dr Klementová and Dr Correa who contributed to the work by the team of dr. Lukáš Palatinus which received The Academy of Sciences Award, 10 female scientists also hold grants by Technology Agency of the CR, Grant Agency of the CR and other grant programmes, to name a few.

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Dr. Correa receives the Award of the Czech Academy of Sciences for outstanding results of great scientific significance for the team of dr. Palatinus from dr. Fejfar, president of the Council for Sciences of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and from prof. Zažímalová, President of the Academy. (Photo: Pavlína Jáchimová, Czech Academy of Sciences.)

“I am also delighted to see that out of 19 dissertation thesis, successfully defended under the supervision of both male and female trainers from the FZU in 2018, 8 were written by women, and in the case of diploma theses, it was 5 theses by women out of a total of 10. We are aware that we need to look for new talents among both men and women and that we need to be able to retain such hopeful workers and to support them in developing their careers. For this reason, we have created equal conditions for all employees,“ says Michael Prouza, Director of the FZU.

The Institute of Physics has systematically created conditions to balance work and family life. As an employer, the Institute enhances part-time jobs, the use of flexible working hours and it plans to extend the home office regimes. The Institute of Physics has applied for the HR Excellence in Research Award certification – in connection with that, an action plan has been created, involving a number of specific measures to promote equal opportunities for men and women. More information is available at https://www.fzu.cz/en/hr-award.

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