Women and Girls: Science needs you!

In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly established that the International Day of Women and Girls in Science would be celebrated on 11 February every year, highlighting the great importance of diversity in research and emphasising the role of women in scientific disciplines.

In Vicomtech we want to highlight, one more year, our commitment to equal opportunities between men and women in all fields. However, taking advantage of the fact that today is the World Day of Women and Girls in Science, we take this opportunity to focus especially on the STEM area. According to UNESCO data, only 33.3% of the world's scientific community are women. Although these figures show that boys and girls perform similarly in science and mathematics, gender stereotypes still persist: many girls still do not feel encouraged in STEM fields and some of them still do not have enough tools and options to access an education in science.

However, this situation is being reversed. Among all of us, and particularly among the entities dedicated to research in the scientific-technological area, such as Vicomtech, we are confident that we will be able to be part of the change.

In Vicomtech we participate in initiatives such as "Emakumeak Zientzian", a project that, through different activities, carries out a deep reflection in order to advance in a change of scenario in the scientific-technological panorama towards a greater visibility of women in science.

On 14 and 15 February, Vicomtech will be visited by high school students from different schools, to show first-hand the important role that female researchers play in the activity of our centre. They will be able to discover the projects they are working on, their fields of application, and will have the opportunity to talk to them about their career and experience in the scientific-technological field.

In addition, in this same context, we have brought together six of our female researchers of various ages and profiles and asked them to talk to their "past selves". "With your current background and experience, what would you say now to the girl you see in the picture?", we asked them after giving them a photo of themselves as children.

We invite you to discover each of their answers. They all send the same message: "Effort, dedication, and try not to listen to what holds you back or makes you doubt yourself".

Women and girls, do not forget that science needs you!