21st International L’Oréal-UNESCO Award “For Women in Science”
March 14, 2019 in Paris took place a ceremony of awarding laureates of the L’Oréal-Inesco International Prize “For Women in Science”. This year, the prize for the first time includes nominations not only in the field of physics, chemistry, medicine and biology, but also in mathematics and computer sciences.
Mathematics is a discipline that helps to make innovative discoveries in other scientific fields. At the same time, this is one of the spheres where women occupy the smallest number of leading positions. Since the establishment of three prestigious awards in the field of mathematics (Fields, Abelian and Wolf Awards), 141 people have become their laureates, including only one woman.
Therefore, the L’Oréal and UNESCO Foundation has joined efforts to expand women’s capabilities in science and increased the coverage of the International Prize dedicated to material science. This year, the organizers decided to note the achievements in two more fields of research – mathematics and computer sciences.
Five laureates of the “Women in Science” award in 2019 included two mathematicians. Claire Vuzen is one of the five women who received the Golden Medal of the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), and the first female mathematician, hired by college de France. Voise was awarded for outstanding achievements in the field of algebraic geometry, while she is the mother of five children. Ingrid Dobeshi from the University of Duke (USA) is the first female research to head the International Mathematical Union.
Traditionally, in addition to the five laureates of the award within the framework of the ceremony, 15 promising young women scientists from all over the world were marked by scholarships.
“For women in science”: more than 20 years of commitment
In the field of scientific research, the
so-called “glass ceiling” still exists: women make up only 29% of researchers, occupy 11% of key positions in academic institutions, and only 3% of Nobel Prizes in the field of science are awarded to women.
Since 1998, the L’Oréal Foundation, together with UNESCO, has been working on increasing the number of women in the scientific environment, maintaining a deep conviction that the world needs science, and science needs women.
For 21 years of existence, the program “For Women in Science” helped to support and draw attention to the activities of 107 laureates and more than 3,000 talented young women-scientists, both graduate students and doctoral students, providing them with annual scholarships for research in 117 countries.