Over the past two years, the website has been regularly updated with information about the FemStart project or other projects and events that consider similar issues. Please note that although the website will remain online until at least 2010, the website will not be updated frequently.
Many thanks for your interest
BackWIST - Women in Innovation, Science and Technology is a two years project funded under FP6 with the aim to analyse the role of gender in technology transfer positions.
The WIST project examined the participation and position of women in transfer, incubation and entrepreneurship (TIE) organisations, especially technology transfer offices of the universities, science parks and other networking organisations, which aim to facilitate the interaction between science and society by bringing together actors from universities, enterprises, policy making and societal services. The science/society dialogue is enhanced by helping researchers to turn their research results into commercial products and services, or by supporting new kinds of university/industry alliances.
The research was conducted in four EU countries in which the TIE sector has developed and is organised differently. Larger countries are represented by Germany and the UK, Romania is one of the transition countries in the EU and Finland is a typical small Nordic welfare state.
The WIST project has analysed both statistical data and interview data. Five case organisations were selected in each partner country. The chief executive officers of TIE organisations and 25 female experts were interviewed in each country during summer and early autumn of 2007 to get a picture of the field. The female expert interviews dealt with their personal career history, contents of work, TIE organisations as working places, networks and contacts and work life balance. The organisations were selected from engineering and biotechnology fields, universities and research institutes and in high-tech and aspiring regions.
More information on the WIST website: http://wist.ncl.ac.uk/partners/ippbo.htm