The Annual Conference of Associazione Donne e Scienza “Ambiente e clima, il presente per il futuro” (Environment and climate, the present for the future) took place in Lecce, Italy, from 14 to 16 November 2019. It had been organized in collaboration with Salento and Bari universities and institutes of the National Research Council of Italy. More than 40 contributions were presented and nearly 100 participants attended, from the whole Italy. The local organizers for Associazione Donne e Scienza were Cristina Mangia and Patrizia Colella.

The Conference was aimed to address climate changes and environmental issues with an interdisciplinary and systemic approach to understand the various implications around the crucial issues affecting the present and future of our planet.

In the plenary session, distinguished scientists introduced climate changes from several perspectives, embracing physics, philosophy, economics and law. Moreover, the gender perspectives was a relevant and original aspect, due to the backgrounds of speakers, most of them activists in women in science associations and/or experts of both climate and gender studies.

The thematic sessions hosted invited talks, presentations and posters in response to the call for abstract, which covered several themes, including climate changes, biodiversity, sustainable development, energy transition, environment and health, gender dimension in environmental research, toxicology and epidemiology, communication with and from society, science and society, citizen science.

The round table allowed for debating with representatives of citizen associations, of Fridays for Future movement and local administrators.

The programme and materials of the conference are available at this link:

http://www.donnescienza.it/convegno-donne-e-scienza-2019-lecce-14-16-novembre/

The proceedings book with the extended abstracts is in preparation.