JST Open Seminar "When gender is a criterion of quality in science knowledge, practice, and impact"

■ Title:
" When gender is a criterion of quality in science knowledge, practice, and impact"

■ Date:
Tuesday, September 1  

■ Time:
13:30-15:00

■ Venue:
Meeting Room A, 2nd Floor, JST Tokyo Headquarters 2 (K's Gobancho)
7, Gobancho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
http://www.jst.go.jp/EN/location/index.html

■ Speaker:
Dr Elizabeth Pollitzer
PORTIA Ltd Managing Director
http://www.portiaweb.org/

Dr Elizabeth Pollitzer was a founding member of Portia as a volunteer organisation in the mid-1990s and has been active in gender and science for over 15 years. Under her initiative, Portia was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee in 2001 and she has been Managing Director of Portia since, leading the company from coordinating a single modest national project to spearheading multiple international partnerships involving stakeholders from across varied sectors. In her capacity as a gender and science expert she advises, evaluates, designs and facilitates workshops for various organisations, and speaks at conferences and workshops across the world. In her role as Portia Managing Director she has been the primary co-ordinator of numerous award-winning European Commission projects under a range of funding streams, as well other funding organisations. Elizabeth’s background is in IT and Biophysics. Her original training was in the biophysical sciences, in preparation for a medical career but after graduating from King's College London with a joint honours degree in Biology and Physics, she continued her studies and obtained a PhD in Information Science, from which she went on to many years spent both teaching and researching at the Department of Computing at Imperial College, University of London in Expert systems and Human Computer interaction.

■ Abstract:
In the last 5-10 years, a large body of scientific evidence has become available showing that  biological (sex) and social (gender) differences between males and females can play important role in determining quality and efficacy of research outcomes for women and menistorically, researchers assumed that women and men react or respond to research protocols in the same way. This resulted in many flawed studies with potentially harmful effects, in particular for women.  It is now recognised that in many research areas, studies need to investigate sex-gender factors as primary variables.  This is needed to remove gender bias  science knowledge and to create new innovations and market opportunities. 
 Another important change during the last decade was improved understanding of why women are underrepresented in STEM areas and why better gender balance is important to science.  The evidence that I will present will focus on the benefits of integrating gender dimension in science knowledge making, and on the benefits of promoting gender equality to improve science practice.  
Lastly, I will explain the role of Gender Summit in helping raise awareness of gender issues in STEM and in developing gender expertise to address these issues at regional and global level.

■ Language:
English

■ Register:
http://goo.gl/forms/oAql7RlO7y

■ Contact:
Office for Diversity and Inclusion, JST
Tokyo Headquarters Science Plaza
5-3, Yonbancho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
Tel : +81-3-5214-8443  Fax : +81-3-5214-8088
email: diversity@jst.go.jp
http://www.jst.go.jp/diversity/