About the Gender Summit

Quality Research and Innovation through Equality

The Gender Summit is creating regional and global multi-stakeholder communities committed to enhancing scientific excellence by: removing gender bias from science knowledge making; advancing gender equality in science structures and practices; and applying understanding of gender issues to advance more sustainable and effective research and innovation.

The specific objectives are:

  1. Develop national, regional and global communities as agents of change
  2. Develop evidence-based consensus on the actions needed and the ways of implementing them in specific national or regional contexts
  3. Demonstrate positive effects of gender balance and gender diversity in research and innovation process
  4. Demonstrate how integrating gender dimension in research and innovation content improves quality of results and outcomes
  5. Promote gender aware solutions to societal problems, e.g. urban quality; human adaptation and climate change; food security; transport and mobility.

On this page you can read more about the Gender Summit's background and overviews of past events. You can view all our Past Speakers  and filter by event, or go to the GS Past Programmes & Presentations to read past programmes and download available presentations.

The overarching theme of the events is "Quality Research and Innovation through Equality". They were established in 2011 as part of the genSET project, coordinated by Portia Ltd.

Shown below is the timeline how the Gender Summit has evolved and expanded since 2011. This process will continue. The Gender Summit platform has already migrated to North America, introduced there in 2013 under the leadership of the National Science Foundation (NSF). This event produced a comprehensive Roadmap for Action for North America, which will be introduced to the Summit participants. Interest in other regions has followed. In 2015, the South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) will host Gender Summit - Africa (April, Cape Town) and South Korea’s Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (WISET) will host Gender Summit - Asia Pacific (September, Seoul). Further on the horizon, in 2016, Mexico’s National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) will hold another Gender Summit – North America and introduce Gender Summit - Latin America.

This progress would not be possible without the commitment to change demonstrated by the Gender Summit community: the partners, the supporters, the sponsors, the nearly 500 speakers and 2500 participants, from over 50 countries. We thank everybody for helping us develop this platform for dialogue as a sustainable and effective tool for achieving change the way science can do best, i.e. through evidence and consensus.