Women in Science ( WiS) day 2025

Women in Science Day conferences continue to explore how to speed up the transition to gender equality in scientific careers.

In its 2025 edition, BeWiSe invites higher education students, academics, university professionals, diversity and inclusion officers and policy-makers to discuss how gender equality is really progressing at Belgian research institutions. We will also reflect on including a gender dimension in research.

• Session 1: Is gender equality really progressing at Belgian research institutions?
  We reflect on how equality progressed in the last 4 years, how Gender Equality Plans are really implemented, the gender and inclusion initiatives that are being taken and that occurred in the past and the impact they generate(d).

Speakers:

• • • Marjan Van Aerschot, (Policy adviser of the Diversity Policy Office – KU Leuven)
    • Badra Djait (D&I officer – UGent),
    • Prof. Florence Degavre  (UCLouvain),
    • Sara Aguirre (Gender and diversity officer – ULB)
• Session 2:
  • Is gendered research always relevant?
    Researchers reflect on whether European requirements on including the gender dimension in R&I apply to their projects/ research fields, and share their methods and best practices.
  • EU Policy Framework.
  • Evaluation and Monitoring of the Gender Dimension in Research in Horizon Europe, Cluster 2 Collaborative Projects.

Speakers:

• • • Oriane Gilloz (European Commission – DG Research and Innovation – Gender Sector),
    • Katherine Quezada (European Research Executive Agency),
    • Samantha Brunt (UAntwerpen),
    • Prof. Geoffrey van Moeseke (UCLouvain),
    • Ana Maria Corrêa (KULeuven),
    • Prof. Suzie Thomas (UAntwerpen).

We will start with a networking lunch at 12h30.

We would like to thank the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) for sponsoring this event.

Short Bios

Marjan Van Aerschot

Marjan Van Aerschot is Diversity Policy Advisor at KU Leuven. She holds a master’s degree in Sociology and a Phd in Social Sciences. She worked for 10 years as a researcher at Universiteit Hasselt and Universiteit Antwerpen on equal opportunities and diversity. In 2012 she started as a Diversity Policy Advisor at KU Leuven contributed there to the development of KU Leuven’s successive gender equality plans. Later on, the scope was broadened to include diversity topics such as disability and diversity in general. Marjan is secretary of the Diversity Council at KU Leuven, participates in the VLIR WG Diversity and Social Policy and also represents KU Leuven in the League of European Research Universities on diversity topics.

Badra Djait

Badra Djait is coordinator of Diversity & Inclusion at University Ghent. She is the chair of Voem, a superdiverse socio-cultural organization that connects people across borders through art, culture, social engagement and technology. She is also board member of LOD, NTGent and De Centrale. Her goal is to build bridges between science, art and diversity.

Prof. Florence Degavre

Florence Degavre is a professor at UCLouvain. Her scientific activities focus on the role played by Third Sector Organisations in challenging existing economic inequalities and initiating deep societal transformations toward sustainability. More specifically, she conducts research on social innovation as new ways of doing, framing, organizing, and knowing in the (long-term) care sector in Europe, and on new socio-economic practices run by feminist businesses. She also supervises PhD research on gender-based violence and policies addressing them. From 09/2022 to 09/2024, she was responsible for designing and implementing an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion policy at UCLouvain. Her work combines insights from both socioeconomics and gender studies and has a strong empirical grounding. She is committed to implementing research methods with a transdisciplinary design, as most projects are conducted with field actors.

Sara Aguirre

Sara Aguirre is the gender and diversity officer of the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). She holds a master’s degree in Gender Studies and a PhD in Psychology and has worked for more than 10 years in the promotion of gender equality and diversity in different countries. At ULB, she conducted research within the Diversity Plan of the University and has been the project manager of CALIPER, a European project aimed at addressing gender inequalities in STEM. In her current position, she coordinates the gender and diversity policy of the institution and pilots the institutional plan and different actions. She is member of several external platforms for gender equality in higher education in the Wallonian-Brussels Federation, such as Comité Femmes et Sciences and the Conférence des personnes de contact genre.

Oriane Gilloz

Oriane is a Policy Officer responsible for designing, implementing, and evaluating crosscutting equality provisions and targeted actions to promote gender equality within Horizon Europe. Her work focuses on the integration of the gender dimension into research and innovation (R&I) content, particularly within the fields of health, digital technologies, and social sciences. Additionally, she is responsible for fostering data-driven insights on gender equality in European R&I, leading the She Figures series, monitoring key performance indicators within Horizon Europe, and tracking gender equality-related expenditure in programme assessments. Previously, she worked as a research and teaching assistant at the College of Europe, where her research in political sociology centered on public administration reforms and EU institutional change. She holds a Postgraduate Master’s degree in European Political and Governance Studies (College of Europe), a M.A. in European Affairs and Advocacy (Sciences Po Aix), and a M.A.in Applied Political Sciences (Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg)

Katherine Quezada

Katherine is a Project Officer working in the Inclusive Society Unit of the European Research Executive Agency. She has almost eight years of experience evaluating and monitoring the implementation of collaborative projects in the fields of European Research Area Chairs, Cultural Heritage and Democracy projects, with a focus on gender-topic related projects. With previous experience as Legal Officer at the Directorate-General of Research and Innovation and as Financial Officer, Katherine has an excellent overview of different aspects of Research Framework Programme implementation. She holds a Master’s degree in Political Science, International Relations (Université Libre de Bruxelles). Her master degree thesis subject was The Politicisation of Women’s Reproductive Rights.

Samantha Brunt

Samantha Brunt is a diversity and inclusion policy officer at the University of Antwerp whose policy foci include gender equality and inclusive research. After 15 years as a writing coach working with PhD students and researchers, she retrained and attained a master’s degree in Gender and Diversity in 2024. For her master’s thesis, she conducted research on inclusive research and innovation, specifically on researchers’ experiences of incorporating the gender dimension into their Horizon Europe funding proposals.

Prof. Geoffrey van Moeseke

Geoffrey Van Moeseke holds the titles of architectural engineer and doctor of applied sciences, both obtained at the Catholic University of Louvain. After an early career as a project engineer specialized in building thermal modeling, he is today a lecturer and researcher in the faculty of architecture of UCLouvain. His field of research extends from the energy performance of buildings to HVAC systems. In recent years, he has focused his work on the application of the principles of sufficiency and low tech, in particular through the Slowheat research program.

Ana Maria Corrêa

Dr. Ana Maria Corrêa is a senior researcher at CiTiP, KU Leuven. She is the vice-president of IVR Belgium (International Association of Legal and Social Philosophy). Her research lies in the intersection of technology and nondiscrimination rights. She recently published her book “Discrimination in Online Platforms: A Comparative Law Approach to Design, Intermediation and Data Challenges”.

by Intersentia. This research was awarded the Van Buuren Jaumotte Demoulin prize (2019-2020). As a researcher and consultant, she has previously worked for the Perelman Centre for Legal Philosophy (Belgium), and DiploFoundation (Switzerland). As a guest and/or appointed lecturer, she has taught at Goethe Universitat Frankfurt (Germany), the Université Libre Bruxelles and KULeuven (Belgium) for bachelors’, masters’ and LLM levels. She holds a PhD in European and comparative law from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, a Law Master Degree in Philosophy from the Université Aix-Marseille III and studied European Human Rights at the European University Institute.

Prof. Suzie Thomas

Suzie Thomas is a Professor of Heritage Studies and current education spokesperson for Conservation/Restoration and Heritage at the University of Antwerp. She holds a PhD from Newcastle University (UK) and a Docentship (adjunct professorship) from the University of Helsinki (Finland). Suzie’s research focuses on Heritage Practice Communities that operate outside of formal heritage institutions such as museums, and on heritage crime and social harm.