Leveraging Data to Guide Policy

After two years of strictly virtual meetings with United States legislators and their staffs, SWE members return to Capitol Hill this March to advocate issues important to women in STEM. Providing data and resources to support our requests and highlight the need for greater diversity in the STEM professions is vital. Since the 2017 debut of the State of Women in Engineering issue of SWE Magazine, we have provided legislative staff with all the relevant data here, in one publication, at the close of each meeting. Staff find this to be a valuable resource, and it has solidified SWE as the go-to partner for gender issues in STEM policy.

One of our most useful research tools is the annual literature review, which offers a careful examination of more than 200 peer-reviewed articles and conference papers on a range of topics pertaining to diversity in engineering and STEM. The most important, substantial research findings and their implications for future research and/or policy interventions are discussed. An extensive bibliography is included. This information helps longtime SWE partners inform their gender-focused diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) work.

Supporting our global community, we offer the feature on Gender Scan’s research, comparing perceptions of American women STEM workers with their European counterparts. We are also excited to share insights and recommendations from SWE’s bicontinental roundtable discussion held last summer in Berlin with members of SWE’s research advisory council and European colleagues. Their discussion provided groundwork for a future research study around formal mentoring programs for early-career academics in Germany and Austria.

For many years SWE has advocated the active enforcement of the protections and assurances of Title IX. Final rules on new Title IX regulations proposed by the Biden administration are expected to dramatically empower people who have been historically neglected as well as reverse rules implemented under the Trump administration. We look closely at some of the proposed changes and interview experts who weigh in on them, including historic new protections for LGBTQIA+ people.

We examine how organizations and industry partners have formed the Women of Color in Engineering Collaborative (WCEC) to transform the culture of engineering, address crucial issues collectively, leverage resources, and make the field more inclusive and supportive of women of color. Follow the WCEC at: https://www.womenofcolorengineers.org/.

Thank you for helping to advance our mission and increase gender diversity in engineering. Be sure to share a link to this magazine issue broadly: https://magazine.swe.org/.