Great Minds Don’t Think Alike! The Power of Women and Innovation

While welcoming the Government’s commitment to invest in science, research and innovation, the Leeds based WISE is calling for a paradigm shift in attitudes to women in science, engineering and technology.

30 April 2018

The call comes ahead of the WISE 2018 conference taking place on the Wednesday 9th May at Media City, Salford, which will look at ways to increase female participation in innovation, R&D and senior roles.

Helen Wollaston, WISE campaign CEO explains: “In order to foster innovation and help close the pay gap, we need fresh thinkers, new ideas and a paradigm shift to drive growth across the whole country. Women are integral as innovators and as members of creative teams to solve these challenges.”

The WISE Conference 2018 will feature industry leaders as diverse as Arm, Thales, Siemens, BAE systems, Network Rail and Amazon Web Services who will share best practice to act as a call to action to ensure women are part of the solution.

Helen adds: “We want to encourage and support organisations to increase the number of women in positions of influence, this will not only ensure that women are part of that solution but also help companies improve their gender balance and reduce their gender pay gaps. We aim to stimulate, debate and elevate the participation of women as innovators and inventors in the UK.”

WISE is a UK-wide campaign for gender balance in science, engineering and technology and as a social enterprise it provides expert support to a growing membership of over 200 organisations working across a wide range of sectors. The Campaign’s vision is for gender balance in STEM with a goal of one million women working in core STEM occupations by 2020.