CR&DALL project Gendered Journeys (comprising teams from the University of Rwanda, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, and the University of Glasgow) held a fantastically successful international team retreat recently at the Seamill Hydro in North Ayrshire, Scotland.

The UK team was delighted to welcome international co-investigators Josephine Malonza and Jane Umutoni from the School of Architecture and the Built Environment and Centre for Gender Studies respectively, University of Rwanda; Saikat Maitra and Manish Thakur from the Public Policy Management Group at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, and advisory board member Suchorita Chattopadhyay from the Department of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University.  We are thrilled to also welcome Jane Umutoni to the School of Education, University of Glasgow, to embark on her PhD research on gender and mentorship for STEM students, funded as part of the Gendered Journeys project.

Also present from the UK team were Barbara Read (project PI), co-investigators Srabani Maitra and Bonnie Slade, and project Research Associates Preeti Dagar, Zy Evangelista, and Daniel Leyton, all based at the School of Education, University of Glasgow. We sorely missed our co-investigator Catherine Lido who was not able to join us this time.

The Gendered Journeys project is an ESRC-funded mixed methods study, with in-kind support from Urban Big Data Centre.  The project explores the ways in which ideas about gender and gender roles impact the experience and progression of students studying STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects, through higher education and into skilled employment in STEM sectors.  It primarily focuses on students in India and Rwanda although we have also expanded the quantitative aspects of the study to include students and employees in the UK as well in these fields.

The project started in February 2020, just at the onset of the global Covid-19 pandemic, and like other research projects we have experienced severe delays as a result. We were originally scheduled to finish the project in January 2023 but have been granted a no-cost extension by the ESRC until the end of that year.  We are currently in the beginning stages of analysing our data but look forward to developing this and disseminating our findings, including via the excellent CR&DALL working paper series, in the months to follow.

Despite the rather stormy weather outside at the retreat, we had a great and very productive time exchanging knowledge and ideas and deciding on key factors in the ongoing progress of the project.  A key benefit of the retreat has been that we were able to develop a common approach to the data analysis of our qualitative data, which was greatly facilitated by being able to physically meet and discuss together rather than speaking to people in ‘boxes’ over zoom with fluctuating Wi-Fi connection. We were also able to outline a timeline for future knowledge-sharing and dissemination events over the year ahead, which will allow the team members from all three countries to get together again.  

Please do get in touch if you are interested in hearing more about the project, and please check out our CR&DALL briefing paper HERE.

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Gallery Photograph 1

From left to right:  Manish Thakur, Josephine Malonza, Suchorita Chattopadhyay, Zy Evangelista, Saikat Maitra, Daniel Leyton, Barbara Read, Bonnie Slade, Preeti Dagar, Jane Umutoni, Srabani Maitra.

 

Gallery Photograph 2

From left to right: Josephine Malonza, Suchorita Chattopadhyay, Saikat Maitra, Manish Thakur, Jane Umutoni.