STEM Education Programme success story
A Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) workforce is crucial to India's economic development and social welfare, but women are underrepresented in STEM careers. Although women constitute 40 percent of science undergraduates in India, only a fraction move into successful academic careers and even fewer reach top positions in research and administration. This results in a loss of talented workforce.
We teamed up with experts from Coventry University to deliver workshops for women in science to help close the gender gap. Funded by the Newton Bhabha Fund – in partnership with IISER Pune – the workshops help to retain and promote women in science by targeting those who are making a transition from education to scientific careers. Over 200 women in science will be trained by the end of the project in 2018.
To date, the training has helped many women grow and put into use their talent in STEM. For example, taking part in a workshop on science journalism helped Divya Khatter to successfully land a new job in science communication at a premier research institute in India. Harshini Tekur was selected for a Merit Prize on her piece for the Asian Scientist Writing Prize and Ashwathi Pacha bagged an opportunity with The Hindu for scientific reporting. Supporting the development of a growing, talented and diverse STEM workforce helps to strengthen India’s innovation and research capacity which is needed to find solutions to global challenges that matter to India but also impact on the UK.
"Following the workshop, I started writing science news stories for 'Current Science' and 'India Bioscience'. Very soon I landed the job I was eagerly looking forward to..." Divya Khatter