Empowerment sessions that previously existed in the institution were recognised to be of poor quality, and did not include a gender-perspective.
Improve the image of leadership roles for teachers, researchers and students.
Mentoring and empowerment courses to improve visibility, self-confidence, negotiating and leadership skills, particularly dedicated to the underrepresented gender
Problem (evidence)
Aims/objectives
To offer opportunities to women to develop further leadership and negotiation skills and raise awareness amongst women about opportunities, barriers and how to overcome them.
Develop empowerment of women students and academic members of staff.
To provide role models in academia and business.
Resources
Human and material resources were provided by the ISEG Direction and Students Union
Brief outcomes
The empowerment session had positive impact on the attendees (only female students) and few teachers (about 40 attendees).
Key area
Recruitment, career progression and retention
Type of action
Training
Organization
Lisbon School of Economics and Management (ISEG)
Higher education institution
Action level of implementation
Researchers/professors and technical and administrative staff, students
Implementation
A women-only empowerment workshop was organised in autumn 2017 in collaboration with: APEM Associação Portuguesa de Estudos sobre Mulheres (Portuguese Womens Studies Association) and two other gender equality projects (project Break Even Coordinated by Sara Falcão Casaca ISEG Universidade de Lisboa and Local Gender Equality Coordinated by Vírginia Ferreira) and the Students Union President (Sofia Escária). We identified role models, individuals in senior academic/business roles that could advise students on their career progression. A top manager, President of PWN (Professional Women’s Network) was one of the presenters.
There was a lot of dissemination among female students in particular on Facebook and Twitter. The marketing office of ISEG designed a poster to communicate this event.
Tips/strategies – Lessons learnt
Good organization was essential as well as collaboration among all the entities/persons involved.
Reflection: what we would do differently
A survey at the end for the evaluation of the training to collect feedback and understand perspectives and from the attendees should be developed.