This new ERASMUS+ KA2 project aims to introduce a new model for Higher Educational Institutes (HEI) to implement comprehensive measures for reducing the gender gap in STEM, assuming a central role in social change. FEMLEAD implements a multi-stakeholder approach to advance Open Science (OS) practices and STEM initiatives in HEIs, promoting gender diversity, inclusivity, and systematization. HEI staff, students, researchers and (minority) women communities, research organizations and policymakers are trained and mobilized to enable women’s participation.  

FEMLEAD puts women at the forefront of STEM and OS initiatives, creating research and entrepreneurship opportunities for them to excel in participatory science whilst giving more visibility to their actions and increasing their self-confidence and knowledge acquisition (juxtaposed to their male counterparts who reported higher levels of the latter (Cost Action CA15212). To facilitate this process, all WPs set the ground for HE staff, students, and women researchers’ exposure to inclusive gender methodologies to battle exclusionary discourses in STEM and OS research. The multistakeholder and policy-based approach adopted can transform HEIs into co-creators of solutions to the problems posed by gender inequality in STI, given the EU’s priorities on inclusion, efforts to strengthen democratic participation, and STEM development (Garcia Penalvo et al. 2022; EC 2022), 

The main deliverables of the project would be Virtual Learning Lab to train HEI researchers, students and other stakeholders; Open Science Implementations encouraging women researchers’ involvement in designing and implementing STEM and OS projects as well as Policy Recommendations and Gender Equality Implementation Plans to enforce compliance with gender mainstreaming practices within HEIs and beyond. 

More to be found by the project’s LinkedIn page FEMLEAD: Overview | LinkedIn and its website femlead.eu