March 28, 2024

“Believe in yourself” – The Neue Südtiroler Tageszeitung

The Free University of Pozin-Bolzano has developed a communication campaign aimed at encouraging young girls to choose an academic career with 10 of their researchers.

In few European countries the proportion of women in science is as low as in Italy: only about a third of all researchers are female (Eurostat 2022).

So what happens to all the girls and young women who dream of discovering new things and developing solutions to current challenges? The Free University of Pozin-Bolzano has developed a communication campaign aimed at encouraging young girls to choose an academic career with 10 of their scholars.

“Don’t let yourself get sidetracked if you dream of working as a scientist,” chairperson Professor Ulrik Tappener encouraged the students and all the young women at the press conference. She herself would like to change some things in light of the data on the proportion of women in science, above all from unibz: 66% of the current 488 students are women. But out of 160 researchers and tenured professors, only 32.5% are women.

“This means that we are missing out on a lot of women who are studying successfully and may also enthusiastically complete their Ph.D. Changing that and encouraging career aspirations in the sciences is important to me, because the scientific community should waste no time in recognizing and promoting the achievements of women scientists in light of global challenges.” .

President Tabiner, a scientist and institute director at Eurac Research and professor at the University of Innsbruck, has launched a communication campaign in which benefits and opportunities for scientific work based on the personal experiences of 10 successful scientists at unibz are conveyed and a series of important messages are launched.

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Soil chemistry professor Tanya Memo tells how, as a scientist, she faces new and exciting challenges every day. Nutritional microbiologist Professor Raffaella de Cagno shares her enthusiasm for scientific work: “Beginning with a hypothesis, proving its accuracy, and then seeing that others learn about your work by citing it is very satisfying.”

Rector Professor Paolo Lugli spoke welcoming words at the campaign presentation, noting the importance of women in research teams: “In the teams I have led or with which I have had the privilege of working, some of the best researchers have been women. Prof. Loughley explained that our university needs their intelligence and skills.

Professor Louisa Beattie, who researches his team at the Sensor Technologies Laboratory, also emphasized regarding her life path: “First of all, you have to believe in yourself. Then surround yourself with people who encourage you.” “One of the most important skills in my research is listening, putting myself in the place of the other person with empathy. Curiosity is just as important. In turn, I can do research on topics that inspire me,” emphasized computer science professor Rosella Gennari. The mathematician Professor Maria Letizia Bertotti quotes the poet Primo Levi: “The closest we can get to happiness is to do a job we love because we spend so much time with it.”

As part of the information campaign, posters of female scientists with short quotes will be posted on university sites in Posen, Bressanone and Brunico in order to give female students role models. In their podcast series Inside unibz Insight – the unibz podcast launching in 2021 – the ten researchers talk about their careers, offer insights into their areas of research and share their passion for science. Also on Wednesday 26 April a series of short films will start, which will be shown on unibz’s social media channels and shown on South Tyrol trains in the coming weeks.

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You can find all the short films here: https://www.unibz.it/de/home/research/women-in-science/

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