We hosted our 2024 WISE Conference on Wednesday 16 October at IET London: Savoy Place.
The theme of the day was let’s make it work for women: building an inclusive workplace for women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths).
Insightful speakers
Throughout the day we heard from excellent keynote speakers, insightful panellists and smaller learning and innovation breakout sessions with opportunities for audience participation through polls and questions.
They covered our topics including period health and menopause support, developing women into leadership roles, inclusive recruitment and effective allyship.
Highlights from the event
We welcomed our Patron Her Royal Highness, The Princess Royal
During her visit, Her Royal Highness met with our members and conference exhibitors to learn more about our mission to pioneer gender equity in STEM. She shared an insightful speech about the future of STEM and showed her continued support and commitment as Patron of WISE.
We launched our WISE Gender Equity Framework
After plenty of thought, research and consultation with our members we officially launched our WISE Gender Equity Framework. It sets out best practice for organisations to ensure an equitable experience for all women, and to create an inclusive environment that benefits everyone in the organisation.
The framework is made up of five pillars, which are: data, attraction, progression retention, and engagement.
Monitoring and measuring data is essential for progression so our framework is supported by two diagnostic surveys. One is for your organisations EDI Lead or HR Manager to complete, the other is to be shared and completed by your employees.
The experience is more user-friendly and results are consistent, allowing WISE to clearly provide benchmarked scores at our annual Measuring Progress Event.
Key learnings from the day:
- Acknowledge your privilege and use your power to be an effective ally
- Unpick the shame and stigma around taboo topics by normalising the conversation
- Create a psychologically safe environment for you and your team
- Be yourself and show up with your difference
- Collect relevant data and use it to inform decisions
- Recognise the individual and their potential – we are not just a label or can be put in a box
Thank you to all of our sponsors, exhibitors and speakers.
The full report from our 2024 conference is available for WISE members to download.
Attend our 2025 WISE Conference
Planning is already underway for our WISE Conference 2025. Please save the date for Tuesday, 30 September where we’ll be welcoming you back to IET London: Savoy Place for our 2025 WISE Conference. More details will be shared in due course, we can’t wait to see you there!
There are lots of opportunities for you to be involved with our flagship event. If you’re interested in sponsoring our conference or being a speaker or exhibitor at the event, please get in touch with us at info@wisecampaign.org.uk.