The first meeting of the Standing Committee for Gender Equality in Science took place via the BigBlueButton platform on September 12 2020. Each representative presented her/his partner organisation and its initiatives for gender equality in science.
Elections of the chair and vice chair took place using the OpaVote platform. Catherine Jami was elected as chair and Guy Smagghe as vice-chair. The partners appointed Marie-Françoise Roy as the communication officer. SCGES logo and website were discussed. Information on on-going projects to promote gender equality among partners was given. See the page Projects and Initiatives.
Through the webinar organised on 1 September by Mark Cesa at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (USA), contact was established with officers of the National Academies who offered to put SCGES in touch with the four geoscience unions (IUSS, IUGG, IUGS, and INQUA) and with IUPsyS (International Union for Psychological Science).
All members of SCGES will look out for possibilities to reach out to other unions and international organizations, particularly those members of the Internal Science Council (ISC). The desirability of involving international organizations of social scientists as well was emphasized.
The next SCGES meeting will take place in March 2021. An online pole will be conducted to select a day and time slot that is convenient for as many representatives as possible, while allowing at least either the representative or deputy representative to be present. The fact that some representatives have family obligations will be taken into account in choosing the date and time of future meetings.
SCGES unanimously decided to invite all deputy representatives of partners to attend its meetings in the future. If votes are organized, each partner will have one vote (either the representative, or the deputy representative when the representative cannot attend).