The establishment of a Strategic Partnership “Diversity in the Cultures of Physics” seeks to build a transnational network for launching several key actions geared towards improving the gender balance in physics and its subfields. The main network activities will focus on creating spaces for young women to consider physics as a field of academic training and drawing upon the diversity of physics for the career planning of female physics students. These pragmatic interventions will enable the network to establish collaborations in and beyond physics, including scholars from gender studies. The evaluation of the project’s activities and wide circulation of its outcomes will advance gender and diversity awareness in physics. The transnational approach allows for a broadened comprehension of professional cultures of physics and how to make necessary changes.The work programme covers two main lines of action, both combining the creation of tangible results with teaching and learning activities:(1) Coordinated transnational outreach events addressed to young women will be organized annually. These activities will be prepared through exchange visits and workshops, and based on a comparative approach of best practices in different national educational settings. During the project phase we will seek further collaborators from universities and schools from outside the partnership. Documentation consisting of teaching materials and presentations from the outreach events will be made available to students and teaching staff in secondary and higher education via the project website.(2) Design, organization and evaluation of a European summer school series for aspiring PhD students, which will be held each year in tandem with changing partners. Key actors are the working groups in the physics departments of the participating universities together with regional research institutes, science policy and gender equality institutions. Essential to the summer school series is experiential reflection within the participating student peer group and the interdisciplinary collaboration of teachers. A sustainable network will be established through the ensuing mentoring and monitoring contacts. Besides the curriculum development, a collection of lesson plans for “Gender Knowledge in Physics” will be an important transferable outcome of this line of action. As the documentation on each summer school events and the final evaluation, they will be published online.Outputs of the strategic partnership will be made available on the open access platforms of the partner universities for long-term use. In addition, the partnership will encourage active discussion through a range of conference contributions and through its own multiplier events in order to make gender knowledge and diversity awareness an issue in the fields of physics. Summarized results from the project will be published in professional journals.The proposed project builds on the extensive expertise of the partners regarding gender-equality activities in physics. The strategic partnership aims to extend existing networks beyond the national limits and make the disciplinary and cultural diversity of doing physics internationally visible. Diversity functions both as an objective and resource for developing and implementing equality-oriented initiatives in physics teaching and training. Thereby, we draw on the findings of gender studies in science, with a particular focus on physics, EU-wide as well as nationally. These studies have documented the professional cultures of physics in different locations and disciplinary specializations regarding their gender effects. Heightened awareness of the differences in the work areas of physicists, consciousness about the heterogeneous political and everyday contexts of scientific research, and knowledge about equality measures at European universities can provide pathways for women and other under-represented groups in physics to pursue their career and life plans. Identifying and opening up these opportunities is the central goal of this project.Establishing an appropriate network is a fundamental requirement to exploit this potential. The project’s target groups and stakeholders comprise university students, researchers and teachers, representatives from science administration, educational policy and gender equality bodies as well as high-school teachers and their students. The activities of the strategic partnership will bring together actors at various levels (local, regional, national, EU-wide) and strengthen their collaboration. Over the course of the funding period, the partnership envisions gradually expanding its network involving more partners within the EU, esp. in Eastern Europe. Moreover, a successful strategic partnership advancing gender equality in physics may function as a model for other disciplines, because physics is globally connected to a wide range of commercial and industrial activies.
The Strategic Partnership “Diversity in the Cultures of Physics” has built a transnational network aimed at improving the gender balance in physics and making physics outreach more gender inclusive. The project initiated and strengthened networks between both transnational partners and scientists of different career stages, aiming to empower young women to pursue a career in physics as an entry to a broad range of professional opportunities. The participation and achievements of women in physics faces two main obstacles: first, the level of first semester female students in physics is only about 25%. This percentage is maintained throughout university physics training, but does not result in an equal number of women in leading positions in physics since second, a significant drop-out occurs at later and, in particular, senior career stages. Research findings of gender studies in science, with a particular focus on physics, identify the impact of essentially male-centred professional cultures in physics as obstacles for female progression. However, they also point to the national variations of cultures of physics, and also across physics subfields, with distinct consequences for their gender effects. Thus, awareness of differences in workplace cultures of physics, reflections on the heterogeneous political and everyday contexts of scientific research, knowledge about equality measures at European universities, and contacts to supportive professional networks were the cornerstones of the project’s goal to provide women and other underrepresented groups in physics with new pathways to realize their career and life plans. The strategic partnership consisted of six universities: Freie Universität Berlin, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona, the University of Manchester, the University of Sheffield, and Uppsala Universitet. Freie Universität Berlin was the coordinator of the project. All partner universities had previously worked to promote women in science, allowing the partnership to build upon extensive expertise in the area of gender equality in physics, sharing the partner’s experiences, learning from each other and spreading best practice. The collective activities of the Strategic Partnership focused on creating space for young women to consider physics as a field of academic training, to successfully find their place in this field and to encourage them to draw upon the full range of opportunities that exist in the transnational and disciplinary diversity of physics. To meet these aims, two main lines of action were carried out: (1) Design, organization and evaluation of a series of European summer schools for female physics students, two of which were held each year between changing pairs of partners. Involved in the implementation of the summer schools were physicists in the physics departments of the hosting universities, regional research institutes, actors from science policy and gender equality policy as well as representatives from women’s networks in physics. Both the specially tailored curriculum, “Diversity in the Cultures of Physics: A European Summer School Curriculum” and the developed teaching material “Lesson Plan Series: Reflections on Gender & Physics” have been published as open access on several web platforms. (2) Reviewing outreach activities of the partner universities in order to develop gender and diversity sensitive physics outreach. Via mutual visits, representatives from the partner universities observed and participated in local outreach events. The resulting insights were used for a joint comparative reassessment of outreach activities and then communicated beyond the partnership through a flyer “Making physics outreach more gender inclusive” that is available online. The project resulted in a further expansion of the initial network. Through the partners’ activities different target groups were included, comprising university students, researchers and lecturers, stakeholders at research institutes, and representatives from science administration and gender equality bodies. The project created a number of sustainable collaborations that are expected to extend in the future. In particular, the implementation of the summer school series enhanced the gender awareness of all involved parties, contributing to a higher degree of gender equality in physics. Moreover, the summer schools can function as a model for other scientific disciplines that face similar problems concerning the underrepresentation of women and other minorities in their fields.