Nature Research and The Estée Lauder Companies have big plans for up-and-coming female scientists. The two leaders in scientific content and cosmetics, respectively, announced plans to award and celebrate women in science.
According to their announcement, women make up less than one-third of the world’s researchers and face barriers to pursuing long-term careers that lead to senior positions. As such, Nature Research and The Estée Lauder Companies launched two global awards to spotlight exceptional achievements of female scientists and those working to promote greater inclusiveness.
The inaugural Nature Research Awards for both Inspiring Science and Innovating Science, in partnership with The Estée Lauder Companies, will recognize inspirational early-career female researchers and those who have worked to champion women and girls’ participation in science.
Inspiring Science Award
The Inspiring Science Award will honor female scientists who have excelled in scientific discovery and have completed their doctorate degree within the last 10 years.
Innovating Science Award
The Innovating Science Award recognizes an individual or organization that has led a grassroots initiative to support increased access to, or interest in, STEM subjects for girls and women around the globe.
Advocating Success
Magdalena Skipper, editor in chief of Nature Communications and judging panel member, said, “Given the inspirational advocacy for gender equality across society we’ve recently seen, it’s more important than ever that we do more to recognize and support the achievements of women in science, and that we encourage girls and women to engage with STEM subjects and pursue scientific careers.
"These awards will give a global platform to some of these women who may otherwise go unheralded, as well as celebrate the efforts of the leaders—women and men—behind initiatives supporting greater equality in the sciences.”
Suw Charman-Anderson, founder of Ada Lovelace Day and judging panel member, said: “The importance of female role models in science cannot be overstated—girls and young women need to see that success is possible for people like them. The Inspiring Science Award will not just recognize excellence amongst women in research, it will also serve to create new role models to encourage girls and young women to consider a career in science.”
Lisa Napolione, senior vice president, global R&D, The Estée Lauder Companies, and judging panel member said, “As a company founded by a pioneering woman, supporting other women pioneers is at the core of who we are. We are thrilled to partner on these inaugural awards with Nature Research, an organization that shares our values focusing on exceptional science and extraordinary scientists.
“We are so proud that more than half of our scientists and engineers in our global R&D teams are women. These scientists have revolutionized research in the beauty industry in a wide range of areas including cellular repair, circadian rhythm and epigenetics in skin. As we look to the future, ensuring a deep bench of research expertise among the next generation in emerging scientific areas is critical.
"We know first-hand that mentoring, and specifically mentoring of young women, is a strong contributor to long-term success, so we have built a scientific mentoring program into the Nature Research Awards. Our goal is to connect award recipients to scientific experts in their fields who have the unique skill set required to support and accelerate the awardee’s research progress.”
Awarding Excellence
The winners will be announced in October 2018. Both winners will receive up to $10,000 to spend on initiatives linked to the award and free training from Nature Masterclasses. The Inspiring Science Award winner will also receive grants of up to $5,200 to support open access publication of their research in a Springer Nature journal, and the Innovating Science Award winner will receive up to $5,200 to support events related to their initiative. Nominations for the awards opened on April 9, 2018, and will close on June 11.
A longlist of ten nominees for each award will be announced on July 24, and a shortlist of five will be announced on September 4. Full details of the awards’ criteria and nomination processes are available at nature.com/researchawards.
