Bridging the Gap Between Life and Work for Female Academics: The Role of Leadership

In this presentation, we will first inquire whether family factors reproducing gender roles at home, are one of the structural obstacles against female academics’ career progression. One of the aims of the FESTA project* is having a better understanding of the academics’ experiences with regard to the subject of “interaction between family and career progression” from the interviews carried among FESTA partners. Based on the FESTA partners’ findings the presentation will reveal out the cross-cultural comparisons with respect to how gender intersects with family kinship, criterium of mobility, career breaks and gender awareness raising. In the second part of the presentation, we will focus on the role of leadership as one of the most efficient way of reconciling work and life in academia, after analysing the findings from FESTA project. In conclusion, we will list some recommendations for making structural changes for creating gender sensitive academic environments. 

*FESTA (Female Empowerment in Science and Technology Academia); is an implementation project financed by FP7 and runs 2012-2017.