Editorial reference page
This page provides editorial commentary on a historical conference series. WIGSAT (Women Inspiring Girls in STEM, Advancement & Training) is an editorial directory and is not affiliated with, nor a successor to, the Gender and Science and Technology Association or any historical body that organised the conferences referenced below.
Gender and Science and Technology - Research Convenings
Where the international research community on women's participation in science and technology has met over the past four decades - the historical conference series and the contemporary venues continuing that work today.
Historical context
An international research conference under the heading "Gender and Science and Technology" (GASAT) ran roughly every two years from its founding meeting at Eindhoven in 1981 through the late 2000s. The series was among the earliest sustained international venues bringing researchers, educators and policy practitioners together specifically on questions of women's and girls' participation in STEM. Across approximately fourteen meetings it produced an early body of empirical work on classroom interactions, curriculum content, and pipeline trajectories that is still cited in the secondary literature. Subsequent institutions - UNESCO programmes, OWSD, GenderInSITE, the Gender Summit - drew on the research community the series helped to constitute, though they are not formally successors to it.
Current venues continuing this work
- Gender Summit - the largest contemporary international convening on gender and science, running since 2011 with regional editions across multiple continents.
- European Conference on Gender Equality in Higher Education
- UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education - a regular convening with substantial gender-in-STEM streams.
- AAUW Convention - a major US venue for gender-in-education policy research.
- OWSD General Assembly - a periodic international convening of women scientists from low- and middle-income countries.
- Grace Hopper Celebration - the largest annual convening of women technologists, with a substantial research and academic track.