Celebrating National Women in Engineering Day – Pushing Boundaries
23rd June 2015
As a proud supporter of the UK National Women in Engineering Day, IChemE invites female chemical engineering role models and ambassadors to come forward and share their stories to help attract more women into the profession.
National Women in Engineering Day was first established in 2014 to mark the 95th anniversary of The Women’s Engineering Society (WES) and to celebrate women in engineering and the creativity of the profession.
As part of their work, WES has produced a video entitled ‘pushing boundaries’ that outlines the inspiration and creativity of past and present engineers from various disciplines.
Chemical engineers and employers around the UK will celebrate the day through a series of events and discussions. These include engagement with schools and talks around the challenges and opportunities to improve diversity in the profession.
Of the students that enter university each year, 25 per cent of accepted applicants in the UK are women. However, women represent only seven per cent of the UK engineering workforce. With the demand for engineering skills, improving diversity in the profession is important.
IChemE is working to develop a programme of activities to promote and support diversity across the profession.
IChemE ceo, David Brown said a valuable part our diversity work is the identification of role models and ambassadors.
“Many chemical engineers identify the opportunity for problem solving and creativity as important factors in their choice to study and work in chemical engineering.
“Role models provide inspiration and examples of how this is applied to address global challenges.”
Brown added that IChemE supports all areas of diversity, but we would like to use the National Women in Engineering Day to call on female engineers to share their experiences.
“This process can encourage young engineers and identify good practice to support women throughout their careers.”
If you would like to share examples of women in chemical engineering and good practice, or would like to be involved in IChemE’s diversity work, please contact Alana Collis.