From 6-10 May the Erasmus Staff Week takes place at the University of Bremen. This year’s focus is retaining women in the international higher education and STEM fieds. STARBIOS2’s Doris Elster will be there to give a talk on recruiting and retaining female students to STEM education.
Professor Doris Elster will give a talk on developing strategies to recruit and retain women in STEM study programmes. During her presentation “It´s my choice. Women in Science and Technology Studies”, she will stress how we need more information about the priorities, values and experiences that motivate first-year-students’ academic and educational choices.
Based on a comprehensive questionnaire survey in German and Austrian Universities (with 3000 participants in each country), Doris Elster and her colleagues analysed reasons why female students choose STEM studies, why some of them choose to continue their studies, and why some choose to drop out. Their findings form the basis of recommendations to recruit and retain female students at the Faculty of Biology and Chemistry at the University of Bremen, and for the educational building blocks “Gender in Research”. The educational building blocks are part of this gender toolbox offered on-line to interested researchers and students.
University of Bremen is one of 12 STARBIOS2 partners, working to enhance responsible research and innovation (RRI) in bioscience.
