Finnish Federation of Graduate Women (FFGW)
invites you to the Nordic-Baltic conference 2019
NO ONE LEFT BEHIND
– GENDER EQUALITY IN EDUCATION AND WORK
Vantaa, Finland
11 – 13 October 2019
1. THEME
Keywords: gender, segregation, STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics),
good practices, cross-generational co-operation, immigration, sustainable development
Today, women make up the majority of tertiary students in almost all EU Member States. They
also constitute from a third to half of graduates within upper secondary vocational
programmes across the EU. In the last decades, women’s participation in education has
greatly increased, providing them with more opportunities in the labour market. There is an
encouraging trend towards gender equality in employment. Yet in spite of this, women’s and
men’s engagement in certain occupations is still limited. Horizontal and vertical gender
segregation prevails as a significant feature of the labour market. Horizontal segregation
refers to the concentration of women or men in different sectors and occupations while
vertical segregation refers to the concentration of women or men in different grades, levels of
responsibility or positions.
There are many reasons to deal with the gender segregation of jobs. Gender segregation
narrows life choices, education and employment options, leads to unequal pay, further
reinforces gender stereotypes, and limits access to certain jobs while also perpetuating
unequal gender power relations in the public and private spheres. Women are concentrated at
low levels in the organisations that employ them, employers tend to reserve powerful
positions for men, while women are less likely than men to exercise authority in the
workplace. The persistence of gender stereotypes also has negative effects on education and
training and, thus, causes gender-based inequalities to be perpetuated in future generations.
As shown above, the problems which gender segregation causes are well documented. The
next step is to find solutions. Our upcoming conference will discuss the good practices and
policies that have been created to resolve the issue in the Baltic sea region, Iceland and
Norway. We hope that increased awareness and sharing of knowledge will yield to further
positive results.
Source: European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) 2017: Gender segregation in education,
training and the labour market.
For your NFAs’ consideration
• Please discuss the proposed theme for the conference within your national
associations / federations (NFA) and let us know asap, if you agree with it. You may, of course, also propose other perspectives and keywords to the main theme.
• The FFGW’s Committee for international relations will start its work only in February 2019. The committee will keep you informed of the conference weekend’s preparations.
2. PROGRAM (DRAFT)
Friday 11 Oct 18:00 – 19:00
Place will be announced later
Reception
Saturday 12 Oct 2019 8:00 – 21:00
Place: Finnish Science Center Heureka (Vantaa)
08:00 – 09:00 Registration
09:00 – 11:00 Presentations of the NFAs (á 15 min)
11:00 – 12:00 Lunch
12:00 – 14:00 Lectures (2 x á 45 min and Q&A 15 min)
14:00 – 14.30 Coffee break
14.30 – 16.30 Lectures (2 x á 45 min and Q&A 15 min)
16.30 – 17.00 Concluding remarks and discussion
17:00 – 19:00 Break (Please note that the Heureka exhibitions are open until 6 pm.)
19:00 – 21:00 Dinner (place will be announced later)
Sunday 13 Oct 10:00 – 12:00
Place: FFGW’s office in Helsinki (The address will be given later. We are currently looking for
new office premises.)
Meeting of the NFA representatives: resolution and next conference
3. REGISTRATION AND FEES
• The conference will be free of charge for first 100 registered participants (including
lunch and afternoon coffee).
• Dinner on Saturday night will be self-financed, that is every participant will pay it for
herself. The price will be marked in the registration form.
• The registration will open once the final conference program is confirmed but no later
than 01 June 2019.
• The NFAs involved with the conference will probably be: Estonia, Finland, Iceland,
Lithuania, Norway, Russia and Sweden. Each NFA (7) will be reserved at least 12 seats
until 01 August 2019. After that date, all the remaining seats will be released to those already on the registration queue with the first-come first-served principle.
• The organising committee will be reserved 16 seats, including the conference staff.
• If we receive significantly more than hundred registrations before 01 August 2019, we will sell separate tickets (including afternoon coffee) for the afternoon session.
• The conference will be recorded and the video will become available after the
conference on FFGW’s website, Facebook page and Twitter account.
• For Sunday afternoon, our plans are still pretty much open. In tandem with the NFA
meeting at the FFGW office, we will probably organise a short trip to Suomenlinna sea fortress in Helsinki or perhaps to city of Porvoo.
4. BUDGET AND FUNDING
• PLAN A: PAID SPEAKERS
o What we know about the overall budget by now:
▪ Heureka 56 euros per participant, including lunch and coffee (5 600
euros)
▪ Recording video of the conference (still open)
▪ Photographer (still open)
▪ Four quest speakers’ fees and travel expenses (still open)
o Outside funding will be sought to cover the entire budget.
• PLAN B: PRO BONO SPEAKERS
o If, however, no outside funding is received this spring, the Finnish Federation of
Graduate Women (FFGW) will commit to pay the conference package for 100
participants.
o Without outside funding the conference program will have to produced entirely
on pro bono basis as it was done successfully in Kaunas (2017) and Tartu
(2016).
o Depending on NFAs’ suggestions on the quest speakers, this might mean that
we will have to plan two conference programs – one for both plan a and b.
Applications by 31 January 2019
• The British Embassy in Finland
o The embassy is interested in co-operation with the NGOs in the field of
education and, in particular, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics).
o Based on our discussions with the embassy staff, we could for example apply for
funding for speakers’ fees but the speaker would then have to be invited from
Britain.
o The embassy has given us few possible speakers to consider. The most
interesting speakers are:
▪ Dr Chandrika Nath. Executive director of Scientific Committee on
Antarctic Research and former deputy director of UK Parliamentary
Office of Science and Technology.
▪ Zing Tseng. Not a scientist but the author of the Forgotten Women
series of books (including Forgotten Women: The Scientists)
• Baltic and Nordic embassies in Finland
o We will also send inquiries to Baltic and Nordic embassies in Finland about
possible co-operation and financial support.
Other applications in spring 2019
• The Nordic Council
o The Council will soon open Open Call Funding Opportunity for Nordic-Russian
co-operation
• Nordic Gender Equality Fund