In that spirit, an Advisory Panel was established in 2004 by the 15 academies of the IAC. The Advisory Panel’s mandate was to propose specific actions that academies could take to increase the representation of women at all levels of science and technology.

In particular, the Advisory Panel was asked to inform the academies on actions they could take to:

•  Make science education more attractive to girls and young women,
• Improve the working conditions of women scientists,
• Remedy gender imbalances in scientific careers. Interpreting its mandate broadly, the Advisory Panel has developed recommendations and action items for the academies in the following areas:
• Supporting women’s S&T careers by means such as grants and fellowships for education and research, as well as explicit recognition for outstanding achievements;
• Advocating and enabling global capacity building and sustainability through programmes that engage women in science and technology at the grassroots level;
• Defining areas where gender equality needs to be realized in academies’ own organizations, both as honorary societies and as employers of scientists;
• Influencing governmental bodies and other scientific organizations.

A major objective of this report, in other words, is to present academies with a strategy leading to the inclusion of women as equal and valued partners —and not only within the academies but throughout the S&T enterprise. Another objective, original to this report and more down-to-earth, may ultimately allow a great many more human beings to further their countries’ development. It is to propose concrete actions for academies so that they help to technologically empower the planet’s billions of women at the grassroots level. If these women, too often barely surviving, are strengthened with S&T knowledge and capabilities in areas such as agriculture, health, nutrition, and sanitation, they can play a critical role in rapidly setting the Earth and its people on a path to a sustainable future.

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