Moedas pledges more help for women in science

Research commissioner Carlos Moedas has said he is exploring ways to make the EU’s next R&D programme more flexible for female researchers who have children.

At a European Parliament conference on women in science held on 25 September, Moedas praised the EU’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, which he said give researchers the chance to restart their careers after taking a break. He said he is “exploring with my services how we could extend this way of working” to the EU’s 2021-27 R&D programme Horizon Europe.

The EU has made “a lot of progress” on gender equality in research over the past few decades but has more left to do, Moedas said. “Imagine a scientist has a child and decides to take time away from her research,” he said. “She’s cut off from current developments in her field. She has less access to networks and she is out of the funding cycle. Her career is likely to suffer. That’s a very common scenario.”