Short summary/outcome:
EVAN GENDER BOARD MINUTES, 2007, YORK STRUCTURE OF MEETING A series of short meetings of the Gender Board (GB), comprising Katrin Schaefer, Sarah Elton and Katerina Harvati, and associated members of the Management Committee, were held during the yearly meeting in York on Monday 8th and Tuesday 9th January, 2007. This was the first face-to-face meeting of the GB after Athens, but many intermediate meetings had been held electronically. 8th JANUARY 2007 PRESENT Katrin Schäfer, Sarah Elton, Katerina Harvati MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES i) Monitoring: most sites have completed monitoring forms. SICs have been reminded that these are now online. Action: SE to ask SICs who have recruited but haven’t completed monitoring forms to do so as soon as possible. ii) Equality contacts: this list is still not complete. Action: Gender Board to ask Neanderthal Museum, ATOM and Toulouse to supply equality contacts as soon as possible so that the list can be finished. iii) Mentoring: on the request of the current female fellows, no specific mentors have been assigned. Nonetheless, new female Fellows will still be given a mentor if they would like one. It was decided that the Gender Board would allocate time at each yearly meeting to meet with the female Fellows and network participants for informal discussion. It was also decided that the Gender Board would be more proactive in sending out reminders for training opportunities and other development opportunities such as travel, encouraging current Fellows. Action: Gender Board to meet with female Fellows at the York meeting. The email list will be used to draw attention to training opportunities. TIMING OF EVAN ANNUAL MANAGEMENT MEETINGS It was noted that starting EVAN annual management meetings on Sunday evening caused some problems for participants with family commitments, so it would be preferable to hold meetings entirely within the working week. Action: Gender Board to formally request that the annual management meetings are not timetabled to start at the weekend. TRAINING The Gender Board expressed a wish to promote training opportunities for female Fellows and participants. This can be done via the female-only email list but it was also noted that a network-wide list would also be useful. In addition, the Gender Board will liaise with the Training Administrator to try and identify areas in which more training can be offered. Action: Gender Board to formally request that a network-wide training email list is established. Contact will also be made with the Training Administrator. RECRUITMENT Two female Fellows have been recruited. There appears to be no gender bias in the recruitment process, with appointments of female Fellows being made in proportion to the percentage of applications received from females (around 30% based on July 2006 data). More applications from females are needed to increase the number of women involved in the network. Advertising jobs on websites specifically aimed at women scientists might help with this. Action: SE to draw up a list of such websites and get information about whether there is a charge for advertising on them.