Science and Universities

The International Day of Women and Girls in Science is commemorated worldwide on 11 February. The United Nations General Assembly declared this day in recognition of the key role of women in the scientific and technological community. Its aim is to raise the profile of women and girls in the world of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics), to facilitate their access to education and to advance towards equality in this field. Barcelona is joining in the commemoration of this date with a host of public actions and activities organised by various science-related organisations.

A major event will take place on Thursday 8 February at 13:00 at the Greenhouse in Ciutadella Park. The event, organised by the Hypatia mission with the support of Barcelona City Council, will feature episode 0 of the audio-series podcast Missió Mart, available on the 3Cat platform and the Catalunya Ràdio app, with the participation of the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni. Hypatia I is a simulated research mission to the planet Mars that in 2023 took a crew of female scientists to live in a research station in the Utah desert in conditions as close as possible to those on the red planet. The event will also highlight the work of women scientists with a round table with the participation of Caterina Biscari, director of the ALBA Synchrotron, Enriqueta Felip, head of the thoracic tumour group at the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), Sonia Estradé, director of the UB Chair of Gender Perspective and Feminisms, Helena Arias, Hypatia II analogue astronaut, and other Hypatia analogue astronauts.

Another action of this year’s edition is the publication of Women scientists you should know. Composed of eleven interviews with leading women researchers in their field of study and complemented by a short video capsule, the series is a collaboration between Barcelona Science and Universities and the digital culture magazine Núvol, a joint initiative that highlights the contribution of eleven women to science and society, and aims to encourage girls and young women to undertake studies in the field of STEAM.

A highlighting action around 11F is the #100tifiques initiative, promoted by the Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca i la Innovació (FCRI) and the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST). For the sixth consecutive year, many women scientists will give inspiring talks in more than a hundred schools throughout Catalonia. This year, the meeting of the school community with the women scientists will take place on 7 February, but before that, on 1 February, an institutional event has been organised to bring together the #100tífiques, consisting of a morning session with talks and round tables given by leading women in their field of research.

In fact, last September the City Council, through Barcelona Science and Universities, signed a collaboration agreement with BIST to promote female leadership in the field of research and to adopt specific measures to support postdoctoral researchers, junior group leaders, and to train girls and young women in science and technology. The agreement is the result of one of the policies deployed as a result of the publication of the study Women and Science in Barcelona, published by the City Council in response to the need to know the reality of women in the scientific fabric of Barcelona and the metropolitan region. The report was presented at the Saló de Cent in an event that took place on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, in this case, 2022.

Diversity of activities

As every year, some research centres and universities organise activities on the occasion of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. One example is the University of Barcelona, which is hosting a wide range of activities and actions in its faculties and centres, including an Instagram contest, an exhibition on women and physics, another on mathematics, a particle physics workshop aimed at girls in their second year of secondary school and the Women in science film forum, among other proposals.

Several outreach centres and municipal facilities in Barcelona are taking part in the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. On 6 February, the Sagrada Familia – Josep M. Ainaud Library in Lasarte is hosting the Wikipedia marathon ‘women scientists’ to feed Wikipedia with female references in science and give visibility to these women. For its part, the CosmoCaixa Science Museum is organising a couple of activities on the weekend of 10 and 11 February. These are the guided tour Women in science: The essential contribution of women to the scientific world, and the workshop Challenges of science. Great contributions of women scientists. And on 11 February, the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona is offering the workshop Violet Memory, based on the exhibition Imprescindibles about the scientific work carried out by several women at the Museum between 1917 and 1987.

The proposals on women and science go beyond 11 February. On 13 February, the Vallvidrera-Vázquez Montalbán Civic Centre invites you to take part in a workshop on Sustainable Tangrams made with digital fabrication. On 14 February, the Institut d’Estudis Catalans will be hosting the conference Women and Science. History of a Grievance. And on 16 February, the Vil·la Urània Civic Centre is organising the workshop Let’s do science with girls and women in science.

Around this day, many more science proposals have been organised, not necessarily framed within the framework of 11 February, but which can also awaken many vocations among girls, young women and minority groups in the STEAM world. One of these outstanding proposals is the Week 7 Science Festival, promoted by the Guinardó Civic Centre, which now manages the Municipal Planetarium, and which from 12 to 17 February will bring a fortnight of proposals to popularise science for all audiences.