Gender Equality Mainstreaming Digest – September 2019 Issue
Here are the highlights of this month’s Gender Equality Mainstreaming Digest! Click HERE for the full version.
Daylily [Hemerocallis]. Photo courtesy of D. Ceplis
Highlights:
Opportunities and Upcoming Events:
Call for expressions of interest: Case studies and prototypes for gendered design in STEAM – IDRC and Carleton University are pleased to announce a call for expressions of interest to examine gender-inclusive technological design in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Funding from this call will support researchers in LMICs to adopt and share research and design methods and practices that bring gender considerations to the development of technology-based solutions to improve lives and livelihoods for all, and particularly for women and other disadvantaged people.
This call will be of interest to LMIC researchers who are currently involved in the conceptualization, design, and/or production of technology-based solutions, applications, methods, and processes.
The deadline for submitting expressions of interest is September 27, 2019 at 11:59 pm (EDT).
Chairs for Women in Science and Engineering Program – The NSERC Women in Engineering Chair, which was launched in 1989, was expanded and redeveloped in 1996 to its current form, the Chairs for Women in Science and Engineering (CWSE) Program. The goal of the program is to increase the participation and retention of women in science and engineering, and to provide role models for women active in, and considering, careers in these fields. The CWSE Program is regional—with one Chair for each of the Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, Prairies, and British Columbia/Yukon regions.
NSERC has issued a call for nominations for both the CWSE-Prairies and the CWSE-Ontario positions. Full applications due October 8, 2019, 8:00 p.m. (ET).
This Month’s News:
Canada Research Chairs program taking new measures to close equity gaps among prestigious academic positions – The Canada Research Chairs program is committing to new measures to close the long-running equity gaps among the prestigious academic positions, including for the first time a focus on professors who are LGBTQ.
The CRC program awards funding for more than 2,000 top researchers at a time. A 2006 legal settlement between the federal government and eight female researchers required the program to set targets for how many of the award recipients were female, Indigenous, visible minorities or had a disability. In the years since, universities have rarely met or exceeded the equity targets that sought to make sure that the diversity of those who received the awards reflected the diversity of those who were eligible to receive them.
The three granting councils are the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
The new targets are to be based on those groups’ representation in the general Canadian population, as opposed to their numbers in the hiring pool of academics. That means that in 10 years, 50.9 per cent of research chairs are to be given to women; 22 per cent to visible minorities; 7.5 per cent to people with disabilities; and 4.9 per cent to Indigenous scholars.
The current representation among Canada Research Chairs, according to May, 2019, data, is that 33.5 per cent were women; 15.9 per cent are visible minorities; 1.6 per cent were people with disabilities; and 2.1 per cent were Indigenous people.
Dairy Cattle Improvement Industry Distinction Award – On behalf of all organizations involved with dairy cattle improvement in Canada, the Lactanet Board of Directors is very pleased to announce that Bonnie Cooper is the 2019 recipient of the Dairy Cattle Improvement Industry Distinction Award. The presentation of this award will be made during the Dairy Cattle Improvement Industry Forum that will take place at the Westin Bear Mountain Resort in Victoria, BC on September 17 & 18.
Northern Farm Training Institute gets $400K to train women, youth to farm – The Northern Farm Training Institute in Hay River, N.W.T., will receive about $392,920 from the federal government’s Agriculture and Agri-Food Department. The money comes from the government’s Northern Diversity in Agriculture Program, which hopes to increase the number of Indigenous-run agriculture businesses.
The money will be specifically used for the institute’s pilot project called From-the-Land Food Ambassadors — which aims to train northerners to start their own garden, raise and harvest livestock, and become agriculture mentors in their communities.
The pilot project — which started this summer — is available to anyone from teens to elders, but is specifically targeting people that may not have easy access to agriculture like women, people with disabilities, and Indigenous people among others.
Reports Publications and Resources:
Film about farming women shows how times have changed — and how old stereotypes still linger – In a new 20-minute documentary, filmmaker Kelsey van Moorsel asks you to “Picture a Farmer.” And the three Alberta farmers featured in the first-time filmmaker’s documentary are all women. The film is meant to both celebrate women who farm — and challenge preconceived ideas about them. The three women who appear in the film are Kristin Graves, a young vegetable farmer from Wetaskiwin County who runs Fifth Gen Gardens; Lynn Dargis, a custom feedlot and grain farmer from St. Vincent; and Susan Holme Manyluk, a beef producer from Red Deer County.