Gender equality in STEM programs: a
proposal to analyse the situation of a
university about the gender gap
Dra. Alicia García-Holgado
GRIAL Research Group
Computer Science Department
University of Salamanca, Spain
aliciagh@usal.es
Mena, J., García-Peñalvo, F. J., Pascual, J., Heikkinen, M., Harmoinen, S.,
García-Ramos, L., Peñabaena-Niebles, R., Amores, L.

1. The Project (I)
Building the future of Latin America: engaging
women into STEM
Acronym
W-STEM
Funding body
European Union. ERASMUS + Capacity-building in Higher Education
Call for proposals EAC/A05/2017
Reference
598923-EPP-1-2018-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP
Dates
3 years, 15/01/2019 too 14/01/2022
Budget
862.268⁄
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1. The project (II)
W-STEM 2
Oulu University – OULU (Finlandia)
Politecnico di Torino – POLITO (Italia)Tecnológico de Monterrey – ITSM
Universidad de Guadalajara – UDG
Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María – UTSM
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso – PUCV
Nothern Regional College – NRC
Technological University Dublin – TUD
Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica – ITCR
Universidad de Costa Rica – UCR
Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja – UTPL
Universidad Técnica del Norte – UTN
Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar – UTB
University of Salamanca – USAL
Universidad del Norte – UNINORTE

1. The Project (III)
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Associated Partner
External evaluator

1. The Project (IV)
• Improve strategies and mechanisms
for attracting, accessing and guiding
women in Latin America in STEM
higher education programs
• W-STEM aims to guarantee the
transformation of the current situation
in Higher Education Institutions in Latin
America
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Photo by Bradley Hook from Pexels
https://goo.gl/VbUxCx

2. Objective
This work presents a proposal to analyse the state of a
university about the gender gap through a set of
instruments applied and further developed in the frame
of the W-STEM project
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3. Motivation
To have enough information to prepare the gender
equality action plan that will be carried out during the
next two years of the project
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4. Methodology
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5. Phase 1: Self-assessment (I)
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Based on the STEM and Gender Advancement (SAGA) Toolkit

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6. Phase 1: Self-assessment (II)
• The 15 universities provided the data updated to the last course 2018-2019
• Although there are 26 indicators, only those associated with the ten core
themes were used in this analysis due to the other indicators are not
provided by all the institutions
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Europe (EU) Latin America (LA)
NRC OULU POLITO TUD USAL ITCR PUCV ITESM UCR UDG
UNINOR
TE
UTN UTB USM UTPL
Female staff 43,75 34,18 35,31 32,01 33,41 21,52 37,53 44,75 27,67 - 26,17 24,92 21,43 19,97 45,45
F. students
enrolled
48,90 30,49 28,03 22,75 37,09 32,04 28,45 33,73 38,21 30,16 34,13 31,80 29,12 25,11 21,00
F. applicants 56,50 38,69 30,85 - 42,54 42,80 29,76 45,39 39,92 - 35,47 31,19 34,09 30,51 42,86
F. applicants
accepted
48,90 36,78 31,53 - 46,03 34,83 28,70 39,03 41,76 31,70 35,15 33,55 30,96 30,41 6,00
F. applicants
enrolled
48,90 35,93 29,89 25,55 41,05 30,97 27,97 36,70 43,44 - 31,94 34,21 30,96 29,55 6,00
F. students
graduated
64,03 42,86 30,31 23,74 35,27 37,24 36,32 34,56 37,17 28,56 34,56 32,47 30,94 26,23 30,00

6. Phase 1: Self-assessment (III)
• The aim of the analysis is not to compare the institutions, but to obtain an
overview of the situation of each institution and to identify the available
sources of data as well as possible gaps in institutional statistics that could
be further improved through institutional actions
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6. Phase 1: Self-assessment (IV)
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6. Phase 1: Self-assessment (V)
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7. Conclusions (I)
• The self-analysis not only serves as an input of the gender equality action
plans defined by each university, but also as a tool to compare the impact
of the action plans
• The main conclusion from the early results of the self-assessment in the
W-STEM project shows that still work to do since most of the universities
show percentages around 30% in the leading indicators analysed
• The results of the self-analysis provided enough information to focus the
gender equality action plans in each Latin American institution
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7. Conclusions (II)
• To improve the different indicators an integrated effort made by universities,
industry and government to develop national policies towards reducing the
gender gap
• Industry and government have to implement measures such as to afford
recognition of the extra social demands for women; guarantee more
resources at the workplace, better parental leave conditions and better
circumstances for hiring
• Those measures will complement the strategies and mechanism
implemented by the universities
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Website and social profiles
https://wstemproject.eu
wstemproject@gmail.com
Twitter
@WSTEMProject
Instagram
@wstemproject
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/wstemproject
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS1EzRQqzi03AEYWSFMER_Q
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Official hashtag
#WSTEMproject

Disclaimer
The European Commission support for the production of this publication
does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the
views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible
for any use which may be made of the information contained therein
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W-STEM (Building the future of Latin America: engaging
women into STEM) is a project funded under European Union ERASMUS +
Capacity-building in Higher Education Programme
(598923-EPP-1-2018-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP)