The idea for Women In Science Eindhoven, WISE for short, was born on International Women’s Day in March 2006. A number of female scientists noticed that a distinct infrastructure of female academics within TU/e was lacking. They found this a missed opportunity, for there is so much to be learned from each other. “TU/e employs more men than women. Sometimes, however, you need to exchange experiences with women. As there was no clear network yet, a clear overview of the female scientific staff was absent”, says Mila Davids, who was the initiator of WISE together with Monique Jansen-Vullers.

A survey showed that there were more women sharing this need. After a year of preparations the official starting signal sounded in May 2007, when the WISE network was born.

Driven
Several times a year the WISE network organizes lunch meetings, workshops and a big event. In English, for the grassroots have many different backgrounds. For one, the executive committee itself counts international representatives. The activities concern items such as personal development, exchange of knowledge and experience.

“An important goal is to put women in science in touch with each other. They discuss each other’s fields of expertise, as well as subjects that everybody comes across, such as the main steps in a scientific career”, Davids explains. She has been pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm of female scientists. “Over the past few years I have noticed how driven TU/e women are. I myself find it wonderful to conduct research, and I know I am not the only one in this respect. It feels good to share this with others and to convey this passion to future scientists.”

After having shared the chairwomanship’s office with Jansen-Vullers for two years, Davids now passes the gavel on to Elise van den Hoven. She, too, has been involved from the very inception. In the past two years Van den Hoven has worked on a mentoring project of the WISE network. In this project, TU/e staff members are given the opportunity to learn from a mentor, for instance a professor. “The mentors have a wealth of experience, not only in their own fields, but also as regards the organization. Together you formulate goals and you regularly feed them back. Quite instructive”, Van den Hoven explains.

The pilot stage is running and will be rolled out university-wide in October. As the new chairwoman Van den Hoven intends to focus on growth and professionalization. “Everything is running now, so we can start to improve the organization”, she says. Within this context the advisory council will have priority. “With the ideas emanating from our network we give advice to the Executive Council, both requested and volunteered. In the future we wish to develop this function further.”/.