Women on Biotechnology Scientific and feminist approaches

The project Wonbit is aimed at organising a Conference on women in biotechnology, in order to produce specific recommendations for improving the situation of women working in the field, and for gaining more knowledge of biotechnology impact on life and environment that could facilitate women to suggest new rules and laws on these topics.

A further aim is to promote a confrontation between women scientist and feminists in order to facilitate a dialogue between different cultures (humanistic and scientific), which often are on opposite positions. According to these goals a survey on the women presence in biotechnology (both in industry and in Academy) will be performed in order to provide figures on their positions.

On the other side, the different feminist attitudes to biotech will be identified, in order to select appropriate speakers. Finally, the conference will be structured around four different areas, and in each of them women experts will be invited as lecturers. Space will be devoted also to short presentations by selected women according to the abstracts presented.

A Scientific Committee (covering the biological, sociological and economical expertise) will be appointed from the beginning, to co-operate with the organizers on the theoretical aspects of the conference. After the conference, recommendations will be provided both for promoting women in biotech and to facilitate the dialogue with the feminist movement and society at large.