Women in Science Day conferences continue to explore how to speed up the transition to gender equality in scientific careers. In its 2026 edition, BeWiSe handles a more provocative, albeit relevant theme: ‘Women under attack‘.
This event is open to everyone, regardless of gender, role, or background.
We invite higher education students, academics, university professionals, diversity and inclusion officers, and policy-makers to discuss how immigration, harassment, funding opportunities, gender biases in how excellence is perceived and evaluated, etc., are really progressing at Belgian research institutions. We will also reflect on including the gender dimension in research.
Keynote
What issues do women immigrant scientists face, and how initiatives can help them and support them?
Speaker: Dr. phil. Dipl.-Ing. Afsar Sattari
Board member of Women in Science and Engineering NuT e. V., Germany
Director of Goal-Electronic Print Media & Training Services
Session 1
Creating Safe, Inclusive, and Supportive Environments for All Women Scientists.
We reflect on which measures each organization implements or has set as goals to work towards; the impact they had: positive or not; were they based on rules/regulations/scientific research or was this organizational strategy.
Speakers:
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- Martina Cannone (Policy Assistant in the Gender Sector of the European Commission’s Directorate-General Research and Innovation (DG RTD)),
- Prof. Florence Degavre (Professor, UCLouvain)
- Dr. Tim Thijs (Science policy advisor – Research Foundation Flanders (FWO)),
- Dr. Veronique Halloin (Secretary General FRS-FNRS),
- Diana Sarkees (Machine learning Engineer at Kantify)
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Session 2
What is the gender dimension within your research including the hurdles you had to overcome to do this research?
Speakers:
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- Dr. Hadis Shakeri (Post-doctoral Scientist – VUB),
- Malika Belrhazi (PhD student, University of Antwerp),
- Dr. Hind Hussein (Postdoctoral Research Scientist – KU Leuven),
- Prof. Liliana D’Alba (Guest Professor, UGent).
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We will start with a networking lunch at 12h00.
We would like to thank the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) for sponsoring this event.
