IBENS (Institute of Biology of Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris), its X2/XYcommittee for gender equality and its network SPIBENS (Students and Postdocs of IBENS) took advantage of this annual international day to organize an afternoon Conference on gender equality.

The event started with EPWS President Claudine Hermann’s keynote speech: ”Towards equality in science : European and French contexts and actions” that set the scene. Next came talks of two members of EPWS French associations: Colette Guillopé (femmes et mathématiques) gave an insight on the “Activities of the French associations femmes et mathématiques and Femmes & Sciences”.

Finally Marina Kvaskoff (Femmes & Sciences) described the « Mentoring Programmes for Young Women Scientists »: she took an active part in two of them in the US and Femmes & Sciences association started one in France in 2015 in Montpellier, which has much increased in scale. Marina is now setting a similar programme in the University Paris-Saclay area with around 40 mentor-female mentee pairs.

The afternoon ended with a networking session.

This kind of conference, organised by an informal network, allowed structuring gender-related activities in this prestigious French research institution.

Claudine Hermann