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Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

 

WiSETI: Women in Science, Engineering and Technology Initiative

WiSETI is a positive action initiative at the University of Cambridge that promotes and supports women from Undergraduate level to Professor, in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and Medicine (STEMM) subject areas. WiSETI was established in 1999 and aims to redress an under-representation of women in employment and career progression in these disciplines at the University of Cambridge.

WiSETI supports women in STEMM at the University of Cambridge in a number of ways including: organising activities such as seminars for early career female researchers and PhD and Postdocs, and an Annual Lecture WiSETI provides expertise and resources to help progress the University’s commitment to the Athena SWAN Charter. Visit the University Athena SWAN webpages for more information.

Women are still less likely than their male colleagues to advance to the senior positions in academia, despite their growing numbers in the SET undergraduate and postgraduate courses since the 1970s.
The decline in the female proportions at each career stage holds irrespective of whether women are in a faculty with a 'critical mass' of female students and researchers, such as biosciences, or disciplines where women remain severely under-represented at all stages of academia, such as mathematics.

The UKRC Report (2009):
Female Attrition, Retention and Barriers to Careers in SET Academic Research