ResNet

Events

Events are held from 12.30-14.00 hrs and lunch is provided. All women working in research at the UEA, IFR, JIC or SL are welcome to attend whether or not they are ResNet members.

To book for these events please e-mail s.payne@uea.ac.uk, telephone 01603 59 3849.

We aim to put on between 4 and 6 events per year and welcome suggestions on event themes, speakers or format. If you have any ideas please contact a committee member.

A complete list of past events and activities can be accessed through the Events archive.

Forthcoming Events:

Personal and Professional Development Programme for Women Researchers

Book start in september: s.payne@uea.ac.uk
Call: 01603 593269   Internal: 3269

Recent Events:

Prof Jacquie Burgess "Breaking through: women and the academic life"

Dr Sara Connolly "Moving down: women’s part-time employment and occupational downgrading in Britain"

Date:   Thursday 15 May 2008
Time:   12.30 to 2pm
Venue: Elizabeth Fry Building Room 01.15 (lecture theatre)

Women Researchers’ Networking Event + Lunch
Date:   Tuesday 30th October
Time:   12.30 to 2pm
Venue: Zicer Suite, Env

Discovery Café – 12.30 start
Developing conversations with other women researchers about……

• Work-Life Balance – is this possible in the Research Environment?
• Inspirational work – what inspires you to work in Research?
• What issues affect women in the research workplace?

An opportunity to network with other women researchers and inform forthcoming ResNet Events 2007/8.

Professor Julia Goodfellow: ‘A lab of one’s own’

Thursday 17th May, 12:30-14:00, John Innes Centre Seminar room G34/35
Prof. Julia Goodfellow, (Chief Executive, BBSRC) will talk about her research as a crystallographer, her leadership of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and her views on biology and biologists in the 21st century.

‘Women and International Relations’

Thursday 8th February, 12:30-14:00, Zicer seminar room, UEA
Dr Nicola Pratt from the School of Political, Social and International studies will talk about why women have traditionally been marginalised in the realms of international politics and why this situation is gradually changing. “Have old men in suits finally woken up to the need for gender equality in ALL areas of life? How can we explain these developments and are they good for women?”

Confidence and Self-esteem building workshop

Wednesday 14th March, 12:00-14:00, seminar room G34, John Innes Centre
Hilary Lewis of Creative Training (www.creative-training.org) is running a special one-off workshop for ResNet members, aimed at building confidence and self-esteem. The workshop promises to be practical, inspirational and fun. This taster course is a chance for people to concentrate on themselves for a change and gain a new perspective on their lives.

Confidence helps you:

• Do what you want to do in life and work
• Communicate in a positive way
• Open your eyes to your potential
• See the world in a fresh light
• Reassess the significance of things          

Creative training guides you through a process of short, practical and easy exercises that give you ideas to help you develop the skills to take more control of your life and start making things happen. It helps you to develop positive body language, look at real life situations and how to approach them with confidence. Through sharing our thoughts and experiences, the course is designed to help people help themselves and is both fun and challenging. The atmosphere is supportive, friendly and safe, providing a learning experience to encourage you to think about your own behaviour and that of those around you.
Hilary has over 20 years of professional experience as an actor, director, teacher and communication coach. You may have witnessed her in action at the fantastic workshop ‘Putting the fun into presentation skills,” held at the Institute of Food research in November, on behalf of the Norfolk Network.
“I have found Hilary to be an inspirational workshop leader, with a great variety of experience. She handles different types of people well and enables everyone to participate. She inspires confidence in even the most unconfident person.”
Monica Porter, life coach.

Mary Turner, Author, ‘The Women’s Century: a celebration of changing roles 1900-2000’

Thursday 30th November, 12:30-14:00, Zicer seminar room, UEA

Learn more about the major causes of change in the roles of women in the UK, in the twentieth century. Hear fascinating stories of the struggles and achievements of particular women whose efforts have made our lives richer, like Flora Sandes WWI soldier extraordinaire. Now women can supposedly ‘Have it all’, what direction will the role of women take in the twenty-first century?

For further information about the issues covered in Mary’s book go to: www.her-stories.co.uk

UK Resource Centre for Women in SET – ‘Raising the profile of Women – Why bother?’
Friday 6th October, 12:30-14:00, Seminar room G34/35, John Innes Centre

Why would women working or studying in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) get involved?

Join Erica Williams and Pat Morton from the UKRC (http://www.setwomenresource.org.uk/) for an informative and interactive session covering the following topics:

• Raising the profile of Women in SET – how?
• Get SET women database (www.getsetwomen.org.uk)– why?
• History and success of the UKRC – what has been done?
• Services and support offered by the UKRC – can we help you?
• Future goals and strategy of the UKRC – where to next?
• Current activities – how can you help play a part in SET?

It is the mission of the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET to ‘establish a dynamic centre that provides accessible, high quality information and advisory services to industry, academia, professional institutes, education and Research Councils within SET and built environment professionals, whilst supporting women entering and progressing in SET careers’. 

Natascha Scott-Stokes: pioneering traveller and biographer of famous butterfly collector Margaret Fountaine
Friday 15th September, 12:30-14:00, Hickling room, Institute of Food Research

Natascha Scott-Stokes (first woman to travel the length of the Amazon river alone, author of ‘An Amazon and a donkey’ and 8 travel guide books) will discuss her biography ‘Wild and Fearless: the life of Margaret Fountaine’. Margaret Fountaine (1862-1940) was the most famous butterfly collector of her generation, as well as a very fine artist. Her 22,000 butterfly collection is housed at the Norwich Castle Museum and her 4 sketch books of butterfly life-cycles are held at the Natural History Museum in London.

Originally from Norfolk, Margaret Fountaine travelled all over the world and became an expert in tropical butterfly life cycles. However, her work has largely been forgotten, as since her death at the beginning of World War Two great changes have taken place in all science fields, including entomology, which has led to a focus on theorists over taxonomists and academically trained scientists over self-taught experts in the field. Margaret also failed to network with establishment figures during her lifetime and hated socialising in ‘polite society’. Margaret Fountaine was an extraordinary free spirit who used her professional expeditions to lead a double life that only came to light when her private diaries were unsealed in 1978.

The Norwich Castle Museum will host the launch of Natascha’s biography this September and will also present a small temporary collection from the Fountaine-Neimy collection.

ResNet BA festival of Science event:
‘Women in science - fulfilment or frustration?’
Tuesday 5th September 16:00-18:00, followed by a Reception, Drama Studio, UEA

We have a fantastic panel of national high profile scientists confirmed for this event – see below. We are also delighted to announce that the session will be chaired by Jenni Murray (BBC Woman’s Hour) who has previous form on this subject having recently chaired the UK Resource Centre’s 2nd Annual Conference on ‘Gender and Leadership – Transforming the Culture of Science, Engineering and Technology’.

We promise a lively event which will start with a short presentation by Dr Sara Connolly (ECO). She will set the scene for the panel debate and Q&A session by presenting the stark statistics on women in science, and a summary of her analysis of recent research data focusing on the factors associated with a successful career in science and why the experiences of men and women in the profession differ so significantly.

A Panel debate on dilemmas and difficulties facing young scientists today will follow. Come along prepared with your question to put to the Panel and join us afterwards for refreshments at the Reception. Frances Cairncross (BA Festival President) will be there to launch the 3rd Athena ASSET survey of professional scientists.

There will be a Poster display plus the Photographic Exhibition of the winners of the UKRC ‘Inspirational Women’ 2006 Awards, two of whom are on our panel.

Details of how to book and the full Festival Programme can be found at the BA Festival site www.bafestivalnorwich.com which can be entered with the username: bafestival, and the password: nrp. Free passes for all NRP staff are available.

Panel members:

Prof. Jocelyn Bell Burnell CBE (Astro-physicist, Visiting Professor Oxford University)
Prof. Julia Goodfellow (Chief Executive BBSRC)
Prof. Peter Main (Director of Education & Science, Institute of Physics)
Dr Ian Gibson (MP for Norwich North)
Dr Irene Lorenzoni (Lecturer in Environmental Sciences, UEA)
Dr Jo Dicks (Research Group Leader, Computational Biology, John Innes Centre)
Panel Chairperson: Jenni Murray (Broadcaster, Presenter BBC Radio 4 Women’s Hour and The Message)

“Men are from physics, women are from psychology: Glass ceilings or innate differences?”
Tuesday 18th July 2006, 12:30-14:00, Zicer Seminar room (UEA).

Dr Helena Cronin (London School of Economics) is co-director of the LSE’s Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science and runs the wide ranging and successful programme Darwin@LSE, which fosters research at the front of evolutionary theory.

Helena began her informative talk by emphasising that evolved sex differences are often totally ignored, but that they should be taken into account because humans are not gender neutral. She emphasised that all sexually reproducing species show sex differences, with males generally specialising in ‘competing’ and females in ‘caring’ though some species do show behaviour outside these norms that could be described as ‘new man’ or ‘laddish’. Today these underlying traits are no longer paramount for survival and reproduction, but they still show through and impact differently on men and women in research. If women want to push for a fairer world we need a better understanding of how the sexes differ. This does not mean that discrimination is not part of the story, but Helena stressed that she would only be considering innate differences in this talk.

The main part of Helena’s talk was focussed around the four ‘T’s’ with an emphasis on group distributions rather than averages. Women generally have better verbal skills or ‘Talents’, whereas men have better spatial awareness – a talent that is useful for navigation, some branches of mathematics and a good predictor of science and engineering ability. Studies show that targeted school teaching can help women develop better spatial awareness, but currently men have the edge in maths and engineering. With respect to ‘Tastes’ men usually prefer ‘objects’ and women ‘people’ – this influences the jobs we choose. Women tend to choose subjects like the life sciences and psychology. ‘Temperaments’ reveal differences that relate to competitiveness: women take less risks and are often deterred by competition, which leaves men to play for the higher stakes. ‘Tails’ referred to the spread or variance of most sex difference data sets. This must not be ignored as it amplifies all the other ‘t’s’. Male data distribution tends to be very variable and so there are far more male Nobel prize winners and what Helena termed ‘dumb-bells’. In contrast women cluster so they are less likely to be in the running for such prizes. Could this be the reason why only 35 of 750 Nobel laureates are female?

As anticipated for such a controversial topic, Helena’s talk was followed by a lively question and answer session. The slides to accompany Helena’s talk can be found via the following link: Men are from physics, women are from psychology.ppt

If you want to delve further into this topic Helena kindly donated the following books to the ResNet library:

1. Biology at work – rethinking sexual equality by Kingsley R. Browne. Rutgers University press. New Brunswick ISBN 0813530539
2. Divided Labours – an evolutionary view of women at work by Kingsley R. Browne. Weidenfeld & Nicolson London ISBN 0297841408 Darwinism Today series. Series Editors Helena Cronin and Oliver Curry. For further information on Helena’s work you might look at the March 2005 Guardian article about her: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1436052,00.html.

A somewhat opposing viewpoint can be found in a recent Nature article Barres, BA. 2006. Does gender matter? Nature (commentary) vol 442 13 July 2006 pages 133-136. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7099/pdf/442133a.pdf
Nature had a huge amount of correspondence about this article and set up a blog space to cover it: 
http://blogs.nature.com/news/blog/2006/07/does_gender_matter.html

“A short History of an Engineering Woman”
Wednesday 7th June 2006, 12.30-14.00, Zicer Seminar Room (UEA)

Claire Curtis Thomas MP gave a hugely entertaining and refreshing talk about the influences on her career decisions at key moments in her life. These included a supportive mother, an absent father, 3,000 male dockers who ‘sent her to Coventry’, winning the Apprentice of the Year Award, studying for a Mechanical engineering degree, a research supervisor who she hated, leaving secure employment because of the companies poor human rights reputation, and initial horror at having been elected to Parliament. Words of advice included: “everyone has a duty to develop their self, and to realise their own potential”, “we need to value ourselves sufficiently to say if circumstances don’t suit you will go elsewhere”. She is firmly of the view that companies need to have employment conditions in place to attract women, and that there is a desperate shortage of bright, well qualified women in business – particularly scientists who bring with them skills of objectivity. What does she ascribe her success to? “Bloody mindedness and women’s groups have really helped”, and her top-tip “leave abstinence and rest for after death”.

Claire trained as an engineer at University College Cardiff and became a Labour MP for Crosby, Merseyside in 1997. She moved into politics from her role as Business and Engineering dean at the University of Wales and was the first women professional engineer to enter the House of Commons in the history of the British Parliament. Claire’s twenty years experience of working in engineering and industry made her an invaluable member of the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee from 1997 to 2001. In June 2005 Claire set up WISED, which she now chairs, with the remit of promoting the role of women in science, engineering and design, developing public policy to facilitate greater equality and to work with business and the voluntary sector to improve recruitment and retention of women in this sector. Claire is married with 5 children.

‘The Importance of Networking’
21st April 2006, UEA

More than 60 women researchers from UEA, JIC & IFR gathered to mark the re-launch of ResNet. Inspired by guest speaker Dr Nancy Lane OBE, senior neurobiologist at Cambridge University and director of the university’s project on Women In Science (WISETI), attendees networked enthusiastically sharing experiences and ideas over wine and food.
The slides to accompany Nancy’s presentation and photos taken during the event can be found via the following links:
Networking tips.pdf (PowerPoint presentation)
Re-launch photo gallery

A complete list of past events and activities can be accessed through the Events archive.

Opportunities:

ResNet film – ‘A day in the life of a female research scientist’ – ResNet are looking for two enthusiastic people with good communication and investigative skills and artistic flare, to research, plan and produce a short promotional film about 5 female scientists. Previous experience of FTV is not necessary. If you are interested in being involved please contact a committee member for further information.

£10,000 Award for Women Scientists - The L'Oreal UK and UKRC Bursary
The L’Oréal UK/ UKRC bursary has been developed to address the issues facing women scientists in the UK and the specific problems for “women returners” i.e. women returning to work following a career break; often an extended maternity leave.

The award is very flexible and can be used to directly fund field work or perhaps to deal with secondary issues such as a supply teacher to cover lecturing hours or help with child care, so the scientist can devote more hours to her research project.  For more information see http://www.sci-eng.mmu.ac.uk/news/ukinitative.pdf  or email fwisbursaries@uk.loreal.com