The 5th issue of STAGES Newsletter (published online on July 24th 2014) presents the project’s mid-term workshop titled “Gender and Science: Advancements and Resistances in Fighting Structural Inequality”, which has been held in Brussels on March 26th 2014. A summary of the research paper communicated at the workshop by the UAIC-STAGES team on the strategies for organizational change aiming to achieve gender equality in science has been written by Professor Doina Balahur. Read more here

The European Platform of Women Scientists (EWPS) as well as Gender Portal (GenPort) Project have realized prestigious websites which currently present the most relevant events, activities and research carried out by European organizations and projects of Women in Science. We are glad to see that, thanks to a very good collaboration, some of our successful actions are disseminated through the News pages and sent via social media channels of the EPWS and GenPort. We would like to thank Professors Brigitte Muehlenbruch and Professor Claudine Hermann, who are leaders of EWPS, for the recent presentation of our event “UAIC – A Place for Women in Science. Documentary Exhibition”, and also to Rachel Palmen and Henrietta Dale, who presented news about UAIC-STAGES actions on the GenPort website, no less than four times, namely - general information on the UAIC-STAGES project, on the setting up of the UAIC Centre for Gender Equality in Science, on the European Women Researchers Day, and on the Documentary exhibition “UAIC – A Place for Women in Science”.

As a recognized specialist in Archaeozoology (the study of animal bones from archaeological sites), Professor Luminița Bejenaru, from the UAIC Faculty of Biology, has gained a remarkable scientific reputation in this interdisciplinary community, both in Romania and abroad. Recently, she was the first of two co-editors (together with Dr. Dale Serjeantson, from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Southampton, UK) for a Special Issue of the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. (May/June 2014, volume 34, Issue 3, Pages 245-437). The volume is titled Special Issue on Birds and Archaeology: New Research. The next period, Prof. Bejenaru will participate with original papers based also on the work of research teams she is leading, at important scientific meetings and conferences in this field: the 10th Meeting of the Worked Bone Research Group of the ICAZ, Belgrade, Serbia, 25-30 August 2014 (http://www.wbrg.net/meetings/beograd-2014), the European Association of Archaeologists 20th Annual Meeting, Istanbul, Turkey, 10-14 September 2014 (https://www.eaa2014istanbul.org/site), and the 12th ICAZ International Conference of Archaeozoology, San Rafael, Argentina, 22-27 September 2014 (http://www.icaz2014argentina.com/inicio/). Prof. Bejenaru is a founder member of the UAIC Network of Women in Academia and Research and this year, at the 2014 edition of the UAIC Women Awards for Excellence in Science, within the event European Women Researchers Day, she has been laureate for her outstanding achievements in research.

The topics of gender equality in science that have been advanced through the UAIC-STAGES project activities increasingly became a trigger for rising gender awareness and this positive effect can already be observed. In a paper presented at the International Conference “ELECTROCERAMICS XIV” (fourteenth edition), which has been held in Bucharest, on the interval June 16th- 20th, 2014, Dr. Cristina Ciomaga, a dedicated young researcher in Physics from the UAIC, has proposed the theme: “Woman Scientist. Women models in science. Gender balance in science”, referring to her own experience with women scientists as role models within the COST project (COST Action MP0904, SIMUFER) where she was team member, as well as at some issues on work-life balance in women scientific researchers’ career. Cristina is among the founder members of the UAIC Network of Women in Academia and Research and, for her scientific achievements, she has been awarded at the first edition of the UAIC Women Awards for Excellence in Science (2013). We publish here her interesting, grateful and convincing paper (pdf) in order to stimulate other young researchers and colleagues to reflect on their own experiences of gender in science

The European conferences on gender equality in higher education already represent a prestigious tradition for the academic and research community from Europe and beyond. Since 1998, when the first edition was organized in Finland by the University of Helsinki, the conferences have itinerated across Europe to Zürich (2000), Genoa (2003), Oxford (2005), Berlin (2007), Stockholm (2009), Bergen (2012), and now in 2014, at the 8th edition, in Vienna. By bringing together hundreds of gender equality practitioners, researchers and administrators from the academic world, the conferences were conceived to provide an international forum to discuss and exchange information and experiences and share research results on the changes and challenges related to gender in academia, gender equality promotion and interventions in higher education and research institutions. This year 377 participants from more than 30 countries have attended the conference. Almost 150 speakers have approached, in plenary and parallel sessions, workshops, panel discussions and poster session, such topics as “Gender Equality in Higher Education: Next Steps to Go”, “Strategies for Institutional Change”, “Gendered careers in universities: Challenges for theory and equality policy”, “Creating Gender Equal Workplaces in Academia”, “Recruitment policies” and “Early career” issues, “Gender-sensitive teaching”, “Gender Content in Disciplines”, “Explorations & Interventions in Work-Life-Balance and Academic Working Cultures”, ” Cultural change in academia: starting points, challenges and success factors” and so on (see: https://gender2014.conf.tuwien.ac.at/programme/). In the session titled Change Processes, Professor Doina Balahur presented the communication “Promoting the “co-operation paradigm” for gendering the universities and science organizations. A model of real transformation to achieve gender equality in science”. At the same session Dr. Anke Lipinsky (Leibniz Institute for Social Sciences, Germany), Prof. Uta Klein (University of Kiel, Germany) and Prof. Uduak Archibong (Bradford University, UK) have presented results of their gender research.

The Doctoral Programme on Gender Equality in Science, set up last year (2013) within the frame of the UAIC-STAGES project in cooperation with the UAIC Doctoral School / Doctoral School in Sociology, successfully continued in 2014. At the admission examination session held on the 16 September 2014 two candidates have been declared eligible for this programme. They are Stela Anca Radu (Romania) and Iris Zeitlin (Haifa, Israeli), who proposed two interesting themes for sociological research on gender in science. The first proposed research project aims at identifying, among other topics, the impact of media on science education and research career, while the second one focuses on the implications of gender and ethnicity in medical research and nursing practices, based on case studies investigated in hospitals from Haifa, Israeli. The two PhD research themes will be supervised by Prof. Dr. Doina Balahur, coordinator of the UAIC-STAGES project, who initiated the thematic programme on Gender Equality in Science to be included as PhD advanced research in Sociology.

Like every year, at the beginning of a new academic year, the professors, researchers and students from UAIC, are informed about study and research opportunities especially provided for Romanian scholars in different European countries. For example, DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst/ German Academic Exchange Service), which is the biggest organization in the world supporting the academic international cooperation, announced new application sessions for master studies and research stages at the German Universities in all the scientific and artistic domains. Annually DAAD funds over 600 grants for Romanian researchers and students, within the individual grants programmes and institutional cooperation projects, and supports more than 200 German citizens who want to study, to teach or to do research in Romania. More information about the application conditions on www.daad.ro. Similarly, AUF (Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie) launched the application call for academic professional stages in France for 2015. As mentioned in the call announcement, these mobility grants aim at developing competence needed for scholars’ professional integration in their country of origin and increasing the access of women and young specialists to managerial positions. More on this subject: here.

Dr. Lenuța Alboaie, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Computer Science, has been recently appointed in a Vice-Dean position, responsible with didactic activity. It’s for the first time in the history of the Faculty of Computer Science when a women is elected in an important managerial position in the field of Informatics, a domain known, from relevant gender studies carried out in the European and worldwide Academy, as having a strong masculinized culture. Dr. Lenuța Alboaie is a member of the UAIC Network of Women in Academia and Research set up within the frame of the UAIC –STAGES project and this year she was among the laureates from the Faculty of Computer Science of the ''Women’s Annual Science and Technology Distinctions for Young Researchers 2014''. One can read her CV on our website and more information on the site of the Faculty of Computer Science. The colleagues from the UAIC Network of Women in Academia and Research are pleased to send congratulations to Dr. Lenuța Alboaie and friendly wish her future success.

Beginning with 2014-2015 academic year, the Executive Management Board of the UAIC has launched an internal competition for research grants aiming to stimulate the scientific performance of young female and male researchers from our University. Last month, the call announced that UAIC will be funding 25 grants for researchers under 35 years-old. After the selection process, 26 applicants were declared eligible and for the first time in such contests the proportion of female researchers is significantly more than that of their male colleagues. Thus no less than 18 young female researchers from the two Interdisciplinary Research Departments - of Nature Sciences and Social-Humanistic Sciences, respectively -, and also from different faculties (Biology, Physics, Economics and Business Administration, Letters, Psychology) are among the winners (the list with final results can be read here). Some of these young researchers already are members of the UAIC Network of Women in Academia and Research, the other ones are waited with their CV presentations in order to be included in our compendium/open source database of the most performant women scientists from the UAIC (see here).

On the 30 of October 2014 the team of the UAIC-STAGES project has sent at the European Commission (DG Research and Innovation) the 9th Deliverable on the activities carried out within the project, which describes, in more than 30 pages, three of the actions conceived, planned and implemented this year. Among them, a large part of the D. 4.9 presented the thematic, objectives and agenda of the annual workshop of the UAIC Network of Women in Academia and Research, where the communication strategies for increasing the women scientists’ visibility inside and outside University have been approached. The “Early Career Researchers Day”, an action aiming at supporting motivation and commitment for a career in science and research and which has been organized this year twice times, has also been described. Finally, the D.4.9 made an analysis of the work-life balance measures and strategies taken at the „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University to provide a friendly environment for academic staff, young researchers and students who are having families and children as well as other care obligations.