Study on non-legislative initiatives for companies to promote gender ...

82 Gender equality initiatives
The invitation to apply runs in a window between April and November. There is a formal
application form including the following questions:
• Give details of activities within your organisation which promote science,
engineering and construction to young girls and women generally.
• Give details of activities to encourage women to join your company or organisation.
• Give details of activities specifically supportive of women engineers and scientists
you employ i.e. mentoring, networking etc.
• Give details of how you support the WISE campaign (providing role-models,
sponsorship, help-in-kind etc).
• If your organisation were to win the Investor Award, how would you publicise it?
The awardee is selected on the strength of the application form. The decision is
reached by the Executive Director of WISE in collaboration with a small committee of
representatives from companies supporting the award. These individuals change with
each award and each year. No one is turned away based on the criteria and there is a
more tolerant policy for entry. WISE prefers to have a wide appeal and to attract a
maximum number of companies. The Investor in WISE award attracts larger companies.
Large companies are better at raising the profile of WISE and are considered to
have more cutting edge initiatives.
The awards participants are judged on the quality of the bid and the initiative. At the
very core of the criteria is that the organisation must give evidence of providing a
positive working environment for women but the activity which acts as a vehicle could
be wide ranging. The application is assessed and then the applicant interviewed if
necessary.
In Austria, there are three prizes awarding enterprises or institutes in the fields of R&D,
technology and IT: The “Staatspreis für Chancengleichheit in F&E” (state prize for
equal opportunities in R&D) will be awarded for the first time in 2009. The goal of the
Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT) is to highlight
measures at enterprise level which contribute to an improvement of equal opportunities
in R&D. Among others it aims at the improvement of the framework conditions for
women and men in R&D and changing the culture of R&D in favour of equal
opportunities. The special prize “Gelebte Chancengleichheit in der IT” (“Living equal
opportunities in the IT sector”) is awarded in the framework of the “ebiz egovernment
award”. It awards enterprises, institutions and initiatives in Austria which are providing
equal opportunities for women and men, eliminating gender stereotypes in the IT sector
and meeting the needs of women and men by providing tailored measures.
The most renowned prize in Austria concerning gender equality in non-traditional
professions is the prize “amaZone” (amazone). Established in 2000, the motives to
create the prize are to award enterprises which are training girls in non-traditional
professions and to support girls who want to get trained in technical professions. The
prize is intended to create a win-win situation both for enterprises and girls. One of the
main objectives is to present outstanding firms where female apprentices are trained.
One further objective is to convince industrial and technical enterprises that it is a
profitable step to train women.