EQUALITY GUIdE - KU Leuven

202 Equality Guide
around us. She let the group feel how important communication is by giving exercises
and tips about body language.
During the meeting, there was no time left for feedback on the guest speakers. That is
why the participants were asked to send in their feedback by e-mail. They also got the
opportunity to discuss the topics treated in the meetings on the Blackboard forum. The
feedback showed that it is important for a training course to have strong individuals
with practical coaching experience, who can act as role models. Moreover, the use of
metaphors and tips makes it easier for people to grasp the contents. Finally, the participants
became more aware of the need to improve their visibility and the possibilities of
a communication skills training.
3.3.5. Meeting 5: Set-up of the training contents
In preparation for this session, an interim report of the previous meetings was written
and was sent to the participants with the request to read it by the next meeting. The
fifth session started with a discussion of all the participants’ feedback on the interim
report. It became clear that the session of Hedwige Nuyens had been particularly appreciated
because this guest speaker talked from her own experiences and participants
appreciated the non-academic input.
In the second part of this session, a guest speaker was invited who presented a gender
training proposal while another guest speaker presented a proposal for a meeting skills
training. The discussion with the participants provided the following interesting subjects
for training:
1. introduction in gender aspects and selection criteria at universities;
2. external communication (e.g. presenting research to journalists, the broad public, or
at project applications);
3. internal communication (e.g. meetings);
4. the use of communication as an instrument for advancing one’s career (e.g. social
talk at conferences and receptions).
4. Instrument and case study
In the exploration phase described above, a training programme was developed with
twelve female researchers. The training was offered to the same group of women and
was afterwards evaluated once more. The following is a report of the contents and a
description of the course of this test training. Finally, the evaluation of the trainings will
be discussed and some tips for organizing the training will be presented to the reader.