Montenegro can be proud of its women and girls who make the maximum contribution to the scientific research work of our country, getting involved in science from the earliest age in elementary school, when they are introduced to the natural sciences, through high school and then university education, to the professional pursuit of science.
This was said by the Minister of Science and Technological Development, Biljana Šćepanović, on the occasion of February 11 - the UNESCO International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
Montenegro, too, can be proud of its figures both at the national and international level, emphasizes Šćepanović.
"In fact, in our database of researchers - the Montenegrin scientific network - there are more women than men scientists. Among the doctoral students who are scholarship recipients of the Ministry of Science for the period from 2018-2020, there are also significantly more girls than men, as well as a greater number of ladies who have successfully completed their PhDs from this Scholarship Program," she said.
He adds that we can say that we are significantly better than the world average (slightly more than 30 percent of researchers worldwide are women), while in Montenegro, as he says, that percentage is significantly higher.
"We can proudly point out that, according to UNESCO's data from the last five years, we are the eighth country in Europe, even ahead of many countries in Central and Western Europe in terms of the percentage of female scientists in relation to the total number of scientists in those countries," she said. Scepanovic.
He says that all together as a society, we should work to provide full support to our lady scientists, not to allow their desire and need, of extremely great importance for our society, to realize themselves as mothers, to be an obstacle to their professional pursuit of science .
"Because, as the head of UNESCO says: "science needs women, and women need science", emphasized Šćepanović.
The Ministry reminded that according to UNESCO, only 33 percent of researchers worldwide are women, while only 12 percent of members of national academies of science are women.
"According to their data, also only 30 percent of female students choose a faculty in STEM fields (fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics)," the Ministry says.
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