The STEM GIRLS Observatory will serve as a European platform dedicated to collecting, organising and analysing data on the factors that shape girls’ and young women’s interest in engineering, architecture and, more broadly, STEM disciplines. Its purpose is to generate rigorous and comparable knowledge across the participating countries, providing a solid basis for identifying barriers and better understanding academic decision-making processes.
The Observatory will disseminate periodic reports, comparative studies, good practices and educational resources, along with recommendations for schools, public administrations and social organisations working to reduce the gender gap in STEM.
Its aim is to assess whether awareness-raising and outreach initiatives —including those implemented within this project— are contributing to a shift in perceptions of these fields. In addition, it will offer an open, accessible and sustainable space where anyone can consult data, materials and project results.
The urgency of this initiative is based on concrete data that demonstrates a significant disparity. Across the EU, women account for just one in three STEM graduates, and barely one in five ICT specialists. In Spain, statistics reveal that women represent only 16% of professionals in STEM fields. Disinterest often starts early: barely 0.7% of teenage girls express interest in pursuing higher education degrees related to digital technologies, compared to 7% of boys. These data highlight a major challenge in higher education and a notable loss of female talent that the Observatory seeks to mitigate through evidence-based interventions. Beyond mere data collection, the Observatory will assume an active role in dissemination, utilizing insights from existing projects like the ESTEAM Fests. These festivals, running for four years in 14 EU Member States, have gathered data from over 4,500 girls and women across 12 countries so far. The Observatory will circulate good practices identified at a European level, and educational resources. Previous projects have already trained over 80,000 students, of whom 86% were girls. These materials will be accompanied by practical recommendations aimed at university and public administrations involved in reducing the gender gap.
The final objective is dual: on the one hand, to assess whether awareness-raising and outreach initiatives, including the ESTEAM Fests—which initially aimed to double participants from 4,500 to 9,000—are achieving a real change in perceptions of these traditionally masculinized fields. The EIT plans to train 100,000 schoolgirls by 2028, contributing to the EU objective of reaching one million women and girls in STEM education by that year.
On the other hand, it will offer an open, accessible, and sustainable space where any interested stakeholder (researchers, teachers, parents, policymakers) can freely consult the data, materials, and project results, adhering to the fundamental principle of transparency and public accessibility of the information generated by the institution to address this important social challenge and promote greater equality of opportunity.