Marie Curie Actions: Inspiring Researchers - Imdea

Helping womenastronomers reach forthe starsMore than two centuries ago, the Hanoverian Caroline LucretiaHerschel became the fi rst European woman to be recognised asan astronomer – and the fi rst woman to draw a salary from herscience. Along with her brother, William, who discovered Uranusin 1781 and became royal astronomer to the British crown, shesearched the sky for comets, discovering eight of them between1786 and 1797. In 1835, she even became an honorary memberof the Royal Astronomical Society.We have come a long way since then. Women have been theauthors of major astronomical breakthroughs and make up asubstantial proportion of the staff at astronomical research bodiesand observatories. Nevertheless, despite a strong commitmentto promoting gender equality, astronomy is one science in whichthe gender gap is still quite large.According to the International Astronomical Union, only a quarterof all astronomy professionals are women, although this globalfi gure masks a huge gap between countries: in some, there arealmost no female astronomers, while in others as many as halfare women.Astronomical progressIn astronomy, the sky is quite literally the limit, and this should bethe case regardless of gender; after all, women represent half ofthe talent pool from which research institutes can draw. However,in the longer term, this requires action early on, to attract moregirls to become interested in and study astronomy in order tobridge the gender divide in graduate numbers.In the shorter term and in recognition of the fact that womenneed an early opportunity in order to launch a successful careerin science, the European Association for Research in Astronomy(EARA) launched its own Marie Curie Network, EARA-EST, toprovide young female and male astronomers with truly equalopportunities.EARA’s six leading European laboratories in theoretical andobservational astronomy – from Germany, Spain, France, Italy, theNetherlands and the UK – offered early-stage training fellowshipsto astronomers and astrophysicists from across Asia, Europe,Latin America and the United States.Cosmos lightning157