On Women’s Day 2018, the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking (S2R JU) announces the first edition of the ‘Women in Rail Research & Innovation Award’. With this initiative, S2R JU honours its commitment for gender equality as signatory of the Declaration to ensure equal opportunities for women and men in the transport sector. The Award will be bestowed on Tuesday 18 September 2018, during InnoTrans, the European leading trade fair for transport technology.
Shift2Rail presents the Women in Rail Research and Innovation Award to recognise the work of a woman, or a group of people led by a prominent woman, having demonstrated her professional capacity to move the railway industry forward and breaking obstacles for other women to access opportunities in Research & Innovation.
The railway research and innovation community gathers highly qualified women amongst its stakeholders. However, despite a recent marginal growth in women working in Science and Technology, the percentage of women employed in transport is still very low in Europe: only 22% of transport workers are women and only 14% are in rail and road, according to Eurostat figures from 2017.
The Award is inspired by the ‘EU Platform for Change – Women in Transport’, launched by EU Commissioner for Mobility and Transport, Ms Violeta Bulc. Shift2Rail and the other members of this platform are committed to working for non-discrimination and equality between women and men in transport.
The Award is supported by Commissioner for Mobility and Transport, Ms Violeta Bulc. The Jury that will select the winners comprises by Member of the European Parliament and Chair of the Transport and Tourism Committee Karima Delli, Shift2Rail Executive Director Carlo M. Borghini and senior officials of the European Commission’s transport directorate, among others.
If you wish to nominate someone or present your candidacy to win this Award, please fill up the application form and send the required documents to: communication@s2r.europa.eu.
Deadline for applications is: 1st of May.
The S2R JU will also launch its Rail Research & Innovation Award, aiming to recognise the innovation activities performed by the broad S2R community. Details on the Award will be announced on 16 April at the Transport Research Arena conference in Vienna.
Shift2Rail will take that opportunity to present its grants for PhD students, aimed to support young researchers who work devising cutting-edge solutions for the European railway eco-system.
