The promotion of equal opportunities between women and men in research was a priority theme addressed during the Luxembourg Presidency of the European council in 2015.
According to the Fonds National de la Recherche (FNR), that women are under-represented in the field of science and research is nothing new and it comes across in higher positions. Even in the European average of students for medical students, a distinct imbalance exists between the genders. For the highest academic degree of full professor (or such equivalent) the amount of women is only 20% to that of the number of men.
Furthermore, very few women are found in leading positions of institutions of research and higher education.
A document published by the European Commission summarises the indicators at EU level. Luxembourg is shown to have poor results for most of these indicators, except in terms of the proportion of women who are members of boards and councils.
The FNR is a significant player in the recruitment of young scientists, particularly through its ATTRACT and PEARL programmes, and so feels that it might be able to act as it consider itself to be at the heart of the matter. It intends to ask the beneficiary institutions to present a certain proportion of women candidates for both the ATTRACT (40%) and PEARL (30%) programmes.
Statistics show that the rate of success with the FNR is almost the same for men and women, and this through all its programmes. 38% of applications submitted are by women, and 37% of the projects selected for funding, are projects introduced by women.
