WISER WORKFORCES
An all-island pilot project for Women in Science and Engineering to Re-enter the Workforce 

InterTrade Ireland recently approved funding for an all-Island WITS project proposal for 2 year funding to adapt and pilot an existing on-line training, mentoring and placement programme to support Women in Science and Engineering to Re-entry to the Workforce. 

As part of this pilot educational and mentoring project, WITS will identify, re-train and support technically qualified women to return the workforce following career breaks.  Specifically, the ‘T160’ programme developed by the Open University in Great Britain will be adapted to an all-island programme in Ireland. We will then integrate this project into regional and sector-specific ‘mentorships’ with WITS members, regional partners and companies.

The T160 was developed by The Open University, with support from the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET, specifically to help women return to technical job. In England Wales and Scotland, it’s sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry and the European Social Fund EQUAL Programme in response to a recent government report that highlighted the problems women face when returning to work in these sectors Currently, due to (the largely GB-focused) content and an anomaly in ESF funding, the T160 is not available to women in Northern Ireland. It is not available to women in the Republic of Ireland due to licensing and content issues. WITS have been delighted with the support from The Open University and the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET in this project development phase and we believe this will be a very effective and fruitful partnership.

This aim of this project is to develop and pilot an integrated training and mentoring programme to facilitate technically trained women scientists and engineers to return to the workforce following a career break.

WITS and our partners & affiliates will identify and train the first 12 returnees. We will then identify long-term funding plans for the programme to ensure it will run in both jurisdictions at the end of the pilot project.

WITS have identified this project as an all-island solution to an all-island gap in our current technical education offerings.

The context for this project:

Knowledge economies throughout the world need well-trained and motivated graduates to drive economic development. All governments have made substantial efforts over recent years to ensure both women and men consider undertaking third-level technical option in engineering, science and ICT so that there is a supply of graduate and management talent to support economic development. More girls are choosing science and technology options at 3rd level and at post graduate level, but, more women leave technical jobs than men once qualified.

There is significant and largely incalculable ‘talent loss’ within an economy when people, (often women) make career and life choices which take them out of the workforce. This is even more acute in the technical workforce, as the training and experience needed to work in these sectors are expensive and hard to replicate due to the equipment, labs and other technical infrastructure which is unique to science and engineering education. This challenge is an international issue, experienced by most developed countries. Therefore, WITS intends to adapting projects and schemes which are working elsewhere. We see this as the pragmatic and economically sensible approach to tackling this issue.

WITS is currently advertising for the position of Project Manager for this initiative - to view the advertisement click here:

 back to News & Events