UK’s EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Robotics and Autonomous Systems Wins 2021 Minerva Informatics Equality Award
We are pleased to announce UK’s EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Robotics and Autonomous Systems wins the sixth edition of the Minerva Informatics Equality Award,
with their outstanding support for both the encouragement and retention of female students in advanced graduate study of Robotics, Engineering, Computer Science and Informatics.
The Minerva Award, organised by Informatics Europe and sponsored by Google, was presented at a special ceremony on 26 October 2021, during the 17th European Computer Science Summit (ECSS 2021), a hybrid event in Madrid and online. Claire Ordoyno, Business Development Executive, travelled to Madrid and received the Award on behalf of their Centre and presented the scope and impact of their actions. She told us, “Our student body has many inspiring examples of inclusivity rooted at its core including a Female Mentorship Programme and the student-led WiRE (Women in Robotics Edinburgh) group, which the Mentorship Programme supports. It was created by female CDT students to address feelings of isolation and now has members outside of the CDT which is a wonderful example of its wider impact.”
Professor Helen Hastie, Director of the Centre, also shared with us their joy of receiving the Award. "We are extremely honoured to receive this prestigious award in recognition of our ongoing commitment to supporting equality, diversity and inclusion at the centre. We have collaborated closely across all areas of the CDT to recruit and retain gender diverse students, with our numbers increasing strongly year on year since 2017. Female and gender non-binary students made up 33% of the 2020 cohort with 100% retention of these students from the 2019 and 2020 cohorts. We are enormously proud of the success of all our students and are committed to growing and building on our existing initiatives to create a welcoming, inclusive environment and to further widen the pool of diverse and talented individuals choosing robotics as a career."
The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Robotics and Autonomous Systems is hosted by the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, a joint venture between Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh, forming part of the new National Robotarium. Professor Barbara Webb, the Equality and Diversity Lead at the Centre explained further about their work, “It has been crucial to our approach that we combine a wide range of diversity initiatives to embed inclusion at the centre of our culture. For example, in recruitment we start by including visits to universities by inspiring female academics. We then ensure gender inclusive language is used throughout our application process, and arrange for wide representation on interview panels to make the selection process fair and transparent. We require our academic and support staff to take Unconscious Bias Training and our students have a mandatory Diversity in the Workplace course in their first year”.
Professor Letizia Jaccheri (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU), Chair of the COST Action CA19122 EUGAIN (European Network for Gender Balance in Informatics) and Informatics Europe Board Member, presented the Award to the winner this year. She said, “The theme of this year’s Minerva Informatics Equality Award was encouraging female students to enrol in Computer Science/Informatics programmes and retaining them. The award committee was chaired by Professor Susan Eisenbach from UK’s Imperial College London and supported by outstanding committee members from eight different countries. We had very strong candidates for this year’s award. There was a wide spread of well-functioning programmes from summer schools to introduce school girls to programming, to this year’s winning programme which is from a Centre for Doctoral Training in Robotics and Autonomous Systems. What set the winner apart from other candidates are two things. Firstly, there is not only one single activity, but rather an entire range of activities to deal with recruitment, training and support. The initiatives meant that women felt very supported throughout their entire experience. Secondly, the winning submission had a clear approach with good quantitative and qualitative analysis of impact. The feedback of the participants was very convincing especially since the comments reflect the activities of the initiative: the depth of the support provided will inspire CDT students to become researchers and academics.”
Moreover, in view of this year’s strong candidates, the Award committee decided on giving a runner-up recognition to Hochschule Bremen for their submission: a single sex bachelor’s programme, which the committee finds very innovative and hope that will become a model of good practice.
The Minerva Award is sponsored by Google and carries a prize of 5,000 EUR for winner to carry out further work on promoting gender equality. “Google is proud to support the Minerva Informatics Equality Award and congratulates the winners on their achievement”, declares Dr. Beate List, Program Manager, CS Education, Google. “We firmly believe that it is important to foster gender equality in technology, and the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics has done an outstanding job in increasing and retaining the number of female PhD students and supporting them to achieve their career goals in a supportive work environment”.
About the Minerva Informatics Equality Award
The Minerva Informatics Equality Award, organised by Informatics Europe and sponsored by Google, recognises best practices in Departments or Faculties of European Universities and Research Labs that encourage and support the careers of women in Informatics research and education. On a three-year cycle, the award focuses each year on a different stage of the career pipeline: developing the careers of female faculty, supporting the transition for PhD and postdoctoral researchers into faculty positions, and encouraging female students to enrol in Computer Science/Informatics programmes and retaining them. The winners are selected by a prominent team of international experts in an evaluation process that run each year from May to August.
For more information, visit Minerva Informatics Equality Award and Women in Informatics Research and Education.
About Informatics Europe
Informatics Europe represents the academic and research community in Informatics (or Computer Science) in Europe. Bringing together university departments and research laboratories, it creates a strong voice to safeguard and shape quality research and education in Informatics. With over 150 member institutions across 34 countries, Informatics Europe promotes common positions and acts on common priorities.
Visit www.informatics-europe.org to learn more.