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Enwise - Gender equality in a wider Europe
In the Eastern and Central European
countries and the Baltic States, the communist period
and the transition to market economy have created
a very special situation for women scientists, different
in many aspects from those in the European Union and
the other candidate countries. A preliminary approach
of it could be found in the national
reports that the delegates of the Helsinki
Group on women and science delivered to the Commission
for these countries.
Since the recommendations put forward
in the first ETAN
report 'Science policies in the European Union:
Promoting excellence through mainstreaming gender
equality' focused mainly on Western women scientists,
they did not obviously reflect the situation mentioned
above.
Therefore, among the Women
and Science activities to produce gender equality
in science, Action 27 of the Science
and Society Action Plan aims to promote gender
equality in science in the wider Europe by addressing
the situation of women scientists in Central and European
countries and in the Baltic States.
In this context, the Commission established
the Enwise Expert Group,
which worked from October 2002 until December 2003.
On January 30,
2004 , this Group delivered its final
report , putting forward recommendations on how
to improve the role and place of women in the European
scientific research (European
Research Area's objective) and how to increase
the number of female participants from the targeted
countries in the 6th
Community Research Framework Programme (2002-2006),
to the Commission and to the respective political
and scientific national institutions concerned.
On September 9 and 10, 2004 a valorisation
conference “Enlarging
Europe with/for women scientists” took place
in Tallinn, Estonia to widely debate the facts and
findings of the Enwise report and to validate its
recommendations.
A follow-up workshop "Implementing
Enwise results" was held in April 2005
In
Memoriam
 Professor
Mioara Florica Tripsa passed away on 4 October, 2004
in Brussels, where she had arrived on 21 September
with the hope of finding there an efficient treatment
against the melanoma she had developed a year and
a half ago. Unfortunately, the cancer had already
spread to her lungs and this treatment could not even
begin… In 2002, Mioara was appointed by the
Commission as the Romanian
expert in the Enwise Expert Group and as the Romanian
delegate to the Helsinki Group on Women and Science
by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research.
During the two years of Enwise activities, Mioara
showed a sustained and huge dedication to the Group,
even after heavy chemotherapy sessions. She participated
in two of the Enwise workshops in Budapest, Hungary
(October 2003) and in Brussels, Belgium (November,
2003). In both workshops she chaired one of the parallel
sessions.
She also was one of the five members of the Editorial
Board, whose efforts were crucial towards the finalisation
of the Enwise final report. Her last Enwise appearance
occurred during the Enwise valorisation conference
in Tallinn, on 9-10 September, 2004, where she was
a speaker on the role of the Helsinki Group as strategic
framework and its feedback effects.
One can find below some of the reactions from her
colleagues in the Enwise Expert Group, which all tell
about the profound and sensitive human being we’ve
lost. (Brigitte Degen)
Mioara has left, for me at least,
a pattern of how "never give up", be active
till the last moment. (Alina Zvinkliene)
Mioara was kind, noble, warm, enlightened.
(Marina Blagojevic)
I just believed that Mioara could be the winner
in her life struggle… I will keep her in my
mind as she was, always with a kind smile on her face
and inspiringly optimistic. (Anke Burkhardt)
It seems that she was a perfect combination of
scientist, colleague and friend. (Daniela Velichova)
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