The Gendered Journeys project is an interdisciplinary, international mixed-methods project that explored gendered inequalities in India, Rwanda, and the UK using online surveys, interviews, and eco-mapping techniques to address persistent and growing gender gaps in STEM study and working, particularly in global south contexts. The team has engaged in a wide range of impact and outreach activities, including eco and network mapping activities at ESRC Festival of Social Sciences, ARCadia festival, Open house for the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) 2023 as well as Reimagining the Contemporary in Indian Education Conference held at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, India.

Such activities have allowed us to engage diverse stakeholders - from high-level invited stakeholders meetings in Kigali in June 2023, to public-facing child-friendly events.  We have since begun to triangulate our findings for a gender-sensitive virtual support toolkit to be launched in spring 2024, with recommendations for diverse stakeholders- from senior decision-makers in Higher Education Institutions to regional/ national policy-makers as well as STEM learners and learning-facilitators.

The Gendered Journeys project is part of the Global Challenges Research Fund (ESRC-funded) network exploring gendered patterns of participation and success in STEM, with a focus on knowledge exchange and capacity-building between Indian, Rwandan and UK partners, particularly focused on collaborative development opportunities for early career researchers.

Our project has had the pleasure of mentoring several RAs into onward secure positions, such as with the UK Civil Service and permanent academic lecturer posts in Russell Group Universities. Key to this has been formal and informal spaces for international partner meetings, starting with the launch of the project at the Hilton Grosvenor in Glasgow in 2022, leading to international visits to Universities in Kolkata, Bhubaneswar (Odisha), New Delhi, India, and Kigali, Rwanda, and culminating the collaborative retreat this week at Gleddoch House in Langbank, Scotland.  Here the team was able to share reflections on the qualitative and quantitative work, sharing the underlying work of coding in NVIVO and data cleaning in R, as well as considering how to translate these findings to a wider population using arts-based methodologies, from cartoons to scripted videos. 

We have enjoyed the chance to reflect in the peaceful surroundings of the Scottish hills on the banks of the Clyde, building upon our prior stakeholder meetings, and public-facing impact work. As the project end nears as we close the year 2023, we are looking forward to a sustainable virtual arm of the Gendered Journeys Project launching in 2024, which will inform other UKRI-funded work, and more widely help shape the gender-STEM policies- regional and national- or at least inform the conversations of these policymakers and organizational decision-makers.