“We cannot expect in the immediate future that all women who seek it will achieve full equality of opportunity. But if women are to start moving towards that goal, we must believe in ourselves or no one else will believe in us; we must match our aspirations with the competence, courage and determination to succeed; and we must feel a personal responsibility to ease the path for those who come afterwards. The world cannot afford the loss of the talents of half its people if we are to solve the many problems which beset us.” – Dr. Rosalyn Yalow, Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1977

Today, 11 February 2020, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science is celebrated. Implemented by UNESCO and UN-Women, the aim is to promote full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls.

InnoRenew CoE celebrates inclusiveness and equality in science every day by ensuring a welcoming, equitable and diverse working environment for all employees. Being an advanced and internationally renowned research institute requires not only excellent science and innovative thinking but also the capability to address issues such as gender balance within all institutional operations.

InnoRenew CoE employs a truly international and diverse team. Forty-eight percent of its employees are women,  but statistics tell only part of the story. Beyond human resource management,  the institute’s efforts to promote gender equality included a full-day training on gender-related issues in research and innovation for all employees. This training was designed to help employees understand underlying issues like sex versus gender, organizational and unconscious bias, vertical and horizontal segregation and gender-blind and gender-biased research. Following training, InnoRenew CoE employees can successfully incorporate the gender dimension into research projects as they strive to produce excellent scientific results.

InnoRenew CoE is also member of the ACT Community of Practice Alt+G, a community of research and academic institutions in Slovenia interested in implementing gender equality measures at their organization; currently, they are actively working on bringing together different centres of excellence funded through the Horizon 2020 Teaming instrument and  using the momentum of these newly established institutions to embrace gender equality to effectively address other relevant RRI issues.