FemPower: gender equality in the clean energy transition

Τhe Clean Energy Transition (CET) has been recognized both on an EU and an international level as a strategy of major importance towards the reduction of greenhouse emissions and the fight against...

The objectives of FemPower were to: O1. Develop methodologies and tools to establish gender mainstreaming in the CET and share results with relevant stakeholders during MEs in the 5 HEIs. O2. Develop, test and evaluate a MOOC, an interactive map, and a gender mainstreaming checklist for HEIs in the field of CET to raise gender awareness in CET education and increase female participation in research activities. O3. Develop, test and evaluate gender inclusive co-creation methodologies for cross-sectoral and international cooperation in the field of CET. O4. Develop gender inclusive STEAM educational methodologies in the field of CET to support, empower and improve the gender awareness of the students and staff in the participating HEIs as well as increase their skills for the CET. Each HEIs partner also was to integrate at least two of these practices in their technical curriculum. O5. Develop gender inclusive CET STEAM activities for Secondary Education to increase the number of students and especially girls interested in CET careers. O6. Ensure and promote future long-term sustainability of the implemented solutions, create and maintain the Fem to FemPower Peer Learning Network, as well as disseminate all PRs.

Two main Learning/Teaching/Training activities were implemented during the FemPower project: 1. The FemPower Summer School was held in Thessaloniki from August 28th to September 1st, 2023 and it offered the opportunity to the partners to implement for the first time in a synchronous way the variety of educational methodologies developed collaboratively inside FemPower. A total of 41 learners and 25 speakers/instructors were recruited among all the project partners, coming from a diverse background of studies from the 5 HEIs involved and CPN in order to create a multidisciplinary and international environment. A number of keynote presentations, workshops and other activities were utilized along with fruitful discussion, in order to offer information to the students about the FemPower results, as well as valuable feedback from them to the project consortium. At the same time, the FemPower Summer School was a valuable opportunity for networking among the participating students and speakers. 2. Co-creation of the FemPower sustainability plan - the goal of the three-day workshop held in Belgrade from 17 to 19 April was to apply the methodology produced in PR5 among partners in the consortium in order to: * train the partners in the gender inclusive co-creation strategies developed in PR5, * co-create a sustainability plan for the cooperation partnership that has been formed within the context of FemPower. Partners were trained in co-creation strategies by jointly “Co-creating the stakeholder map for gender inclusive CET” and engaging in an in-depth “Reflections on the map - main stakeholders for FemPower sustainability plan” session. The Belgrade workshop was also used to try-out Hands-On Gender-Inclusive STEAM Activities for Secondary Education from the Handbook developed in PR7. Key for the sustainability plan was a session devoted to Funding opportunities for future projects lead bay the head of international cooperation at CPN. CPN as the partner organizing the workshop invited several local experts which helped the project partners identify future cooperation and funding opportunities, as well as the attraction of stakeholders at local, regional and national level. The workshop was a great opportunity to assess all the work done in the project and to co-create a plan for the sustainability and further utilization of the project results and the resources developed. The sustainability plan produced is an open document from which partners can work on new projects based on the work done and lessons learned in the course of the FemPower project.

The concrete outputs of the FemPower project were: 1 toolkit for HEI - 21 STEAM HEI methodologies 1 handbook for SE - 9 STEAM SE activities 1 gender equality checklist for HEI CET educators 2 checklists (1 for sustainability and 1 for gender equality) for SE CET activities 1 interactive map 1 Massive Open Online Course including 3 1-hour webinars and several: * visuals that contextualize the main topics * video interviews with downloadable transcripts * text-based material for in-depth content * reflection and discussion prompts to be shared with the other MOOC participants * self-assessment quizzes * suggested links and literature references 1 FemPower online repository 1 booklet for Gender-based Violence at Higher Education Institutions 1 co-creation methodology 1 analysis report 3 scientific papers 1 Peer-to-Peer Learning network Full list, along with links, can be found in KPIs Annex: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10dNL3SQ9vGaZn9FQTu7Rd3GldSxprBKwvKKPa49L3ss/edit?usp=sharing FemPower also resulted in the following outcomes: * more attractive Higher and Secondary education programmes * cross-sectoral collaborations bringing together CET, Gender Equality and STEAM backgrounds * use of participatory approaches and digital methodologies * new approaches to deal with gender diversity * a more modern, dynamic, committed and professional environment inside the organisations involved * synergies with organisations active in different fields or in other socio-economic sectors * increased capacity and professionalism to work at EU/international level and across sectors All the tools and methods developed within the FemPower project were tested and evaluated within the project, through the relevant teaching/training activities and implementations, resulting in an initial population of participants that benefited directly from the PRs during the project’s duration. The importance of the project outcomes however is expected to become more evident after the end of the project, as their sustainability will benefit many more students in the following years after the project completion through the dissemination of PRs and the annual repetition of the MOOC.