The Gender & Science AIL group at the SIBECOL and SIL conferences

In July 2022, the Gender Science AIL group participated in the “Ecology: Bettering our sustainable future through scientific knowledge” conference, an event joining the II Meeting of the Iberian Ecological Society (SIBECOL), the XXI conference of the Iberian Association of Limnology (AIL), and the XXI National Congress of Ecology of the Portuguese Ecological Society – SPECO) in Aveiro (Portugal).

For the first time in the history of the group, we were invited to present a plenary talk, entitled “Gender & Science: Fostering women in Limnology”. In this talk, seven members of the group presented the different projects, ideas and achievements that we have developed throughout the years. After the presentation, the audience shared their experience, opinions, and solutions to reduce gender barriers in academia. The talk, which the conference audience granted with the award “Most inspiring talk” will soon be available online.

One month later, in August 2022, the Gender Science AIL group also participated in the 36th Congress of the International Society of Limnology (SIL), held in Berlin. In that conference, three members of the group organized a special session about “Herstory in Limnology” and presented the results of our two latest publications (Lupon et al. 2021, Catalán et al. 2022). As occurred in Aveiro, the audience was highly receptive and several people approached us to share their gratitude, testimonies and enthusiastic solutions.

Overall, these great experiences taught us that the inclusion of activities promoting the public discussion of gender related issues during conferences is an easy and efficient action for raising awareness about all the barriers that most female researchers have to face during their careers.

The author of this post is Anna Lupon, a river biogeochemist at CEAB-CSIC, Blanes, Spain.