Universities in RS seek to promote gender equality – 03/11/2023 – Education

While doing a post-doctorate in pharmacology at the University of Montreal, a scene struck professor and researcher Maria Martha Campos. On a freezing Canadian winter day, she came across a group of women standing in the cold outside the college. She asked what it was about.

They were all workers in one of the university sectors. They had discovered a post where a man was being paid more than his female counterparts. Until the distortion was corrected, they all refused to start their workdays.

“You’ll ask when that was. Surprisingly, it was in the early 2000s and I still remember it today. We are 20 years late in this discussion, but finally doing something about it”, says the researcher from the School of Health and Life Sciences at PUCRS (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul).

To detect and correct gender distortions in academia, PUCRS universities and UFRGS (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul) partnered with King’s College London, England. The Women in Science project focuses mainly on areas of science in which the female presence is still small, such as technology, engineering and mathematics.

In 2021, the English university obtained the “Athena Swan Silver”, a kind of seal of recognition of good practices for the advancement of gender equality. It included, among a series of measures to value women, the development of multiplier projects inside and outside the country. That’s where the gaucho universities came in.

At first, the exchange of experiences between English and Rio Grande do Sul scholars took place through integration trips and mentoring of young researchers.

In 2023, the project went a step further and was extended to two other universities in the United Kingdom —University College London and Glasgow Caledonian University— and two others in Rio Grande do Sul —UFPel (Federal University of Pelotas) and Feevale University, in Novo Hamburgo (RS) .

As of April, it will move on to the data mapping phase. With paid scholarship holders, universities will seek to track where women are present and where they are lacking, their representation on boards and boards and the obstacles that make it more difficult for them to ascend in the academic environment. At PUCRS, the selection for a scholarship holder to participate in this survey is open until March 14th.

Gabriela Bitencourt Ferreira, 23, is a kind of example of a researcher that the project seeks to multiply. A doctoral student in cellular and molecular biology, she stood out with research that uses artificial intelligence to pre-select or discard enzymes for cancer treatments. The ultimate goal is to develop a method that saves time and requires less animal and human testing to arrive at new drugs.

The relevance of the research made her jump from graduation straight to the doctorate and had her name cited 189 times in scientific articles in 2021, placing the gaúcha among the most influential Brazilian researchers today, according to the scientific journal PLOS Biology. She has her guesses about what prevents more Gabrielas in Brazilian science.

“Masters and doctorates have a lot to do with getting research grants, and postgraduate grants don’t have maternity leave. So many times there is a choice: either I start a family or focus on an academic career. That for women, for men is another story”, says Gabriela.

The second obstacle pointed out by Gabriela has to do with power dynamics:

“As there are many men in positions of power, they end up being the ones who indicate the next ones to enter power. Out of machismo, men end up betting more on other men.”

The first mapping data at universities will be up for debate in October at a project symposium in Porto Alegre, with the presence of researchers from British universities. According to Maria Martha, it is an important step.

“Images like that of the first CNPq meeting are no longer normal [Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico], in 1951, when the only women present were secretaries. We began to question why it took more than 100 years for the Brazilian Academy of Sciences to be chaired by a woman [a biomédica Helena Nader, desde 2022). O primeiro passo, afinal de contas, é falar no assunto”, diz.