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Women encouraged
Published:  05 August, 2010

Equality Minister Lynne Featherstone has called for more women to work in the key sectors of science, engineering and technology (SET) at the launch of a new report at Westminster.

During a speech at the launch of the UKRC's Women Mean Business: Why Women are Essential to Science, Engineering and Technology report, the Minister said the fact that still only 5.3 % of working women work in SET in the UK represented a huge problem for the prosperity of the British economy, one that she was committed to tackling: "It is as simple as this: if we don"t promote women in our organisations we are missing out on 50 % of the available talent in this country, at a time when demand in science has never been so high.  And that has serious repercussions for society and the future strength and prosperity of our economy, to which science plays such an invaluable part.

"There unfortunately exists a culture in some circles of science - reminiscent of how workplaces were 20 or 30 years ago - which puts off women from pursuing a career in the industry, and makes it extremely hard for those who work in these occupations to progress.”