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Equity4ES
Equity4ES is an initiative designed to improve the working environment and promote gender balance within the Earth Sciences Department, launched in spring 2021.
Equity4ES focuses on:
- Monitoring recruitment and retention practices to enhance gender equity.
- Raising awareness of gender issues through seminars, open discussions, and a monthly gazette exploring topics such as unconscious bias, gender quotas, and visibility of women scientists.
- Recognizing women’s scientific contributions and ensuring equitable visibility within BSC at large.
You can find more information on the Equity4ES BSC page and the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Equity, Diversity and Inclusion program .
Join Equity4ES
Everyone is welcome to join.
- Monthly Meetings: Held every third Friday of the month at 15:00. You can find information in the Department calendar.
- Mailing List: To subscribe, you can send an email to equity4es@bsc.es .
- Slack Channel: #equity4es .
The initial spark
On 11 February 2021, coinciding with the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, and motivated by the United Nations statistic that less than 30% of researchers worldwide are women, Bianca Mezzina sent an email raising concerns about the gender situation within the department. This message acted as a catalyst, opening a broader conversation about gender balance, representation, and working conditions in the department.
Following this initial call to action, a group of motivated members began organizing to better understand the situation and to identify concrete actions that could lead to meaningful change. The first steps focused on gathering data, creating spaces for discussion, and sharing results transparently with the department.
Key Milestones
27 May 2021: – Department Meeting-Presentation of the first-ever inventory, survey, and results mapping the department, providing a data-driven overview of the current situation. Slides.
23 November 2021– Department Gathering-Presentation on the organisation of the group and ongoing actions, including next steps and areas of focus. Slides.
17 December 2021 – BSC Annual Meeting-Presentation of the initiative and its progress at the institutional level, increasing visibility and engagement beyond the department. Slides.
How our Department looked like back in 2021
Outputs, Dissemination and Engagement
Gazette
As part of the actions that we wanted to set up within the framework of the WG “Awareness raising”, some of us take care to write a newsletter shared to the whole department, and that we call Gazette (open access).
The idea is to cover the latest debates on gender equality:
We bring to the table arguments in favour and against some policies and initiatives that are being proposed around the world to address the gender equality gap in the workplace, and also in the public sphere.
Gender Equity is a sensitive and relevant challenge that has an impact on all of us. Yet, most of us have never received appropriate training and our insights on the topic are based either on personal beliefs/experiences, causal conversations or other informal opportunities. One of the most important tasks that we are carrying on in the Equality group is to gather a body of trusted knowledge that help us understand the causes and impacts of inequalities. We think that this knowledge is key to feeding better-informed debates and tackling Gender Equity issues at both personal and institutional levels.
With this regular communication, we seek to share with you some peer-reviewed data and work done on different aspects of Gender Equity. Our aims are:
- Raise awareness on topics that may impact us now or in the future,
- Give access to useful resources that may help inform different positions on selected topics, and
- Share with you what we have been learning so far.
Gazette Issues
2025
2024
- October: War, Inequities, and Science
2023
- December: Looking back on the year 2023
2022
- December: Parental leave in academia
- March: Unconscious gender bias
- February: Gender quotas
Presentations
The different (mainly internal) presentations we did are listed below (access with VPN):
2025
- EDI Doctoral Symposium (8 May): Slides
2024
- Equity4ES-Department Meeting (4 April): Slides
- EC-Earth General Assembly (March): Equity4es and the EC-Earth consortium presented a talk introducing the topic, accompanied by a questionnaire which those attending the General Assembly were able to answer live. The presentation is here and we also did a poster , so that people could get together to discuss the subject and get references.
2023
- Excluded spaces (June, Tarragona): We presented the Equity4es initiative for the first time outside of BSC. Slides.
- Presentation for newcommers (17 April): Slides.
2021
Seminars
You can find the list of seminars that we organized below (access with VPN):
2022
2021
- Anna Lupon (5 April): Following the publication of her article "Towards women-inclusive ecology: Representation, behavior, and perception of women at an international conference", we invited Anna Lupon to give a talk. The slides of her presentation can be found here.
- Sophie Nicholas (8 March): At the occasion of the International Women's Day, we invited Sophie Nicholas , a Gender and Inclusion consultant, who has graciously agreed to intervene free of charge, to give a talk entitled “Women's meaningful participation at work”.
Events
2025
2024
- Film Screening “Picture a Scientist” (16 February): A screening of Picture a Scientist for the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, raising awareness about gender inequality and promoting equity, inclusion, and sustainability in the scientific community.
You can find the guideline to promote inclusiveness in events organised within the Earth Sciences Department framework here.
2023
- Equity4ES Earth Sciences Open Day (10 November)-The event highlighted the research and career journeys of women and non-binary scientists to Bachelor’s and Master’s students. poster
Internal Debates
2023
- How Minds Change by David McRaney (April): Slides
- The Will to Change by Bell Hooks (February): Slides
2022
Relevant documentation
This page gathers different publications and documents that we strongly recommend reading (open access).
Gallery
Find our photos here
