GEECCO- Gender Equality in Engineering through Communication and Commitment

The underrepresentation of women continues to characterise the STEM field (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Whereas in Europe approximately half of the PhD students are female, only 21% of PhD graduates in computing and 25% of PhD graduates in engineering are women .

Given the relevance of technologies in our societies an adequate participation of all genders in the STEM field is of outstanding importance. With technologies, we shape structures that have long-term impacts on how people live, work, communicate, travel, and consume. Therefore, the gender dimension in research and innovation, their contexts and their outcomes, is significant.

GEECCO is an EU funded project, which brings together a consortium that is characterised by the focus on the STEM field. GEECCO will increase the number of RPOs and RFOs that start to implement gender equality plans (GEP) pursuing the 3 objectives mentioned in the challenge, namely:

Removing barriers to the recruitment, retention and career progression of female researchers;
Addressing gender imbalances in decision making processes;
Strengthening the gender dimension in research programmes.

GEECCO will be a step forward to a new way of establishing tailor-made GEPs in RPOs and implementing the gender dimension in research funding programmes. An effective and efficient dissemination and exploitation strategy has the aim of making the GEECCO approach accessible to other actors.