Nine researchers from the BIST scientific community have been chosen this year to participate in the To the Mothers of Science programme, a programme of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST) that supports women scientists with dependent children who wish to access positions of greater responsibility with financial support and accompaniment. The call for applications is every two years, and this 2024 is the fourth edition of the programme.

The nine winners, from six of the seven BIST Community centres, are: Denitza Denkova and Aleksandra Sierant from ICFO; Alba Garzón Manjón and Sonia Ruiz Raga from ICN2; Marina Inés Giannotti and Nina Kostina from IBEC; Bahareh Khezri from ICIQ; Paula Martínez from IRB Barcelona; and Marion Salzer from CRG.

The external selection panel, made up of ICREA research professors Mariona Graupera and Soraya Pelaz from the Josep Carreras Institute and the Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics, respectively, and the Director General of the Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation, Marta Lacambra, highlighted the high scientific level of the candidates for the 2024 edition.

Thanks to the To the Mothers of Science grant, these researchers will now receive group mentoring sessions with Arantxa Gómez Esqué, a coach specialising in scientific research, and a grant of 400 euros per month for a year to spend on whatever they consider most necessary.

Despite the fact that men are nowadays much more involved in parenting, recent studies show that fatherhood and motherhood have an unequal impact on men’s and women’s careers. This difference is particularly salient in STEM careers, an environment that is often associated with a very intense and constantly evolving pace of work, and where it is easy to fall behind.

A study conducted in the US among leading STEM professionals showed that, although the arrival of children has a significant impact on both men’s and women’s careers, it is more noticeable for women. In this case, between 4 and 7 years after the arrival of the first child, 43% of female STEM professionals had changed their full-time job for another type of work, or had stopped working, compared with 23% of men who had done so.

In Catalonia, AQU Catalunya’s study on women’s entry into the labour market twenty years after completing their university studies points in the same direction, showing that having children doubles the wage gap between men and women, and that the experimental sciences and mathematics are among the fields with the highest glass ceiling. The same study indicates that mothers with children have a perception of imbalance in the time dedicated to family, work and in a higher position than fathers and people without children.

News source: BIST